Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, this week House Republicans will pass a resolution condemning the actions of New Mexico Governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former Member of this body.

Late on a Friday night earlier this month, the Governor took action to suspend open carry and concealed firearms in her State. Yeah, you heard that right. She claimed so-called emergency powers to combat a public health crisis, she said, and on a whim, she attempted to restrict the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding New Mexico resident, the citizens of her State, the citizens of this country.

Her action, of course, was overtly unconstitutional. It is functionally useless, and it will only divide Americans further. Someone with elementary-level knowledge of the Constitution would, of course, know this. Fortunately, New Mexico residents and law enforcement openly defied her order, and it was panned by lawmakers across the country, even some of our Democratic colleagues in this body.

Mr. Speaker, here is the interesting thing I wanted to note today: It is ironic that Attorney General Merrick Garland was here on the Hill and has been in the Judiciary Committee in an oversight hearing for the last several hours. He is America's top law enforcement officer in charge, of course, of our top law enforcement agency, the Department of Justice. One would think that this type of issue, this event in New Mexico, regardless of the politics, that that is something the DOJ might intervene in, but they haven't.

Now, by principle, of course, we are conservatives, and we believe in less Federal Government intervention. The less the Federal Government is involved in State affairs, the better overall. But this is not the case. In this situation, the issue here is the DOJ's selective application of justice and its clear targeting of red States for passing laws that its duly elected Representatives voted for.

Think about these few examples.

In 2021, the DOJ sued the State of Georgia for passing election integrity reform. That suit failed, and Georgia had record voter turnout just a year later.

Months later, the DOJ sued the State of Texas over laws--your State, Mr. Speaker--passed to protect unborn children. The Supreme Court refused to intervene, and statistics show that abortions in Texas have plummeted, thankfully, as a result.

Earlier this year, the DOJ sued the State of Tennessee for a ban on child sex change procedures. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the suit, and now it is State law.

The DOJ, Attorney General Garland in particular, has displayed a penchant for filing public lawsuits against red States for passing conservative policy through their democratically elected legislature. They do so with weak charges, based on unconstitutional arguments on cases they know they cannot win, but that is not the point. They have politicized the DOJ.

Here is the big question. Given those examples and the trend of this Department of Justice, why hasn't Merrick Garland hosted a press conference or announced a Federal lawsuit into the State of New Mexico for arbitrarily suspending the constitutional rights of its citizens?

I will tell you why. It is no secret. It is because New Mexico's action serves the Biden administration's stated political goals.

The DOJ will sue red States for passing conservative policy, while turning a blind eye to Democrat Governors who unilaterally curtail constitutional rights. They will put grandmothers behind bars for protesting abortion but refuse to prosecute violent offenders who actually attack the pro-life pregnancy centers. They will prosecute President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, but they give President Biden a complete pass for even worse infractions.

When we say the DOJ has been weaponized, this is exactly what we are talking about, and this is what the American people see.

Mr. Speaker, today the House Judiciary Committee, as I mentioned, asked Attorney General Garland about these questions and many more. Right now, 65 percent of the American people have no faith in the Department of Justice. It is because of his leadership. He has eroded the rule of law. He has destroyed public trust in an essential American institution.

I used my time this morning, I was the first questioner on our side in Judiciary, and I asked the Attorney General about the DOJ's Hunter Biden investigation. This is a big question on the minds of my constituents and most of ours around the country.

I asked him plainly:

Have you had personal contact with anyone at FBI

headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation?''

His answer was, I don't recollect the answer to that

question.

Really?

Okay. Let me get this straight, I told him, the Attorney

General of the United States cannot remember if he discussed

an FBI investigation into the son of the sitting President of

the United States? That is your testimony under oath?

Yes, it is, he said.

It is extraordinary.

Mr. Speaker, frankly, we didn't expect full transparency today from this Attorney General. He and his top DOJ lieutenants have shown us, they have demonstrated over and over that they hold no regard for the rule of law and really are just acting as political hatchet men protecting their boss, President Biden.

The Attorney General was clearly unwilling or unable to provide the essential answers that we needed today. We will continue to press for them. That is our job. That is our constitutional duty on Judiciary to provide oversight over the DOJ.

Mr. Speaker, we have a great lineup of Members here to speak this afternoon on some very important topics to the country.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. He is exactly right. We had no choice but to proceed to the impeachment inquiry phase because that is where the evidence has led us, as you noted. We have a responsibility. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says very clearly that a President shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. We have credible allegations of a number of those infractions. Bribery is one of them. High crimes and misdemeanors are another. We have mounds of evidence now stacking up to support those allegations, so we do not have a choice under the Constitution but to proceed accordingly, and that is what we will do. We will do our constitutional duty.

Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), my good friend and Super Bowl champion.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. That was well said.

If time permitted today, I am sure we would have every Republican in the Conference come to the floor and speak to the same issue because it is so outrageous that we have this trampling upon some of our most fundamental freedoms; the Second Amendment, of course, being among them.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman and former mayor from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend; that was well said.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, very well said by the gentleman.

Look, let's hasten to say we take no pleasure in this. There are a lot of big challenges that the country needs to fix. We don't want to spend time and resources investigating the President, impeaching a President.

Next to declaring war, this is the heaviest power that we have in the House of Representatives, but Article I of the Constitution does give us the ``sole power of impeachment'' here.

We have no choice in the matter. Given the evidence, given the allegations, we have to pursue it, and we will. We are often asked: Why is the House majority, why are the House Republicans spending so much time investigating? If we had not done these investigations, we wouldn't have all of this evidence.

Why?

It goes back to the theme of what I was saying earlier: The Department of Justice is simply not doing its job. Under normal circumstances, the DOJ would be investigating all these allegations of corruption but they simply looked the other way.

As I noted earlier, Attorney General Garland, who is just now leaving the Committee on the Judiciary, he has been here all day, has abused the Department to pursue political agendas. He has sued conservative States over their local policies. He has raided the home of President Biden's main political opponent. The Department is obstructing at the same time the Hunter Biden investigation and impeding the House's impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

What are we to do?

I was home on the August district work period. I was doing townhalls in my district in Louisiana, and I will tell you that at every venue, the number one question everybody has is: When will there be accountability?

I mentioned earlier that 65 percent of Americans now have no faith. They

don't trust the Department of Justice. We are losing faith in our institutions because the people do not see accountability. They don't see a fair system of justice. They see a two-tiered system of justice.

It is frightening. You cannot maintain a Constitutional republic if the people do not trust the system of justice. They don't believe it is fair. They don't believe that they are going to get a fair shake, that every American, regardless of who they are, is going to have equal justice under law. That is the threat right now. There is nothing more serious than that.

Mr. Speaker, we will pursue the truth, and we will follow it wherever it leads and try to return that accountability to the people.

Mr. Speaker, I end the Special Order hour here, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and thank Louisiana's brave first responders who valiantly rose to the occasion this summer as our State was hit with unprecedented wildfires, the largest of which is still burning today.

We had tens of thousands of acres that have been charred. Nearly half of the parishes in my district were ablaze. At one time, parts of Sabine, Beauregard, Allen, Vernon, Natchitoches, Grant, Caddo, and DeSoto Parishes were all on fire.

Our communities received support from the State fire marshal, the State police, the National Guard, as well as nearly every local police and fire department in the region. The U.S. Forestry Service dispatched firefighters from many States around the country to help.

Many of the first responders have been volunteers, Louisianans who donated time, money, and shelter to their neighbors in need. This disaster tested our State more than ever, but we responded.

Louisiana is home to the most resilient people you will ever meet, and we will bounce back from these wildfires just as we have done after every disaster we have ever faced. It is a great honor to represent so many of these heroic individuals in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, barring declarations of war, impeachment is the most awesome power that Congress has. It shouldn't be a threat. It shouldn't be a political exercise. It is certainly not a pledge to be made on the campaign trail.

This is the most serious business that we can engage in. No one should want to impeach a President or take any pleasure in that. However, after months of blocked investigations by agencies in this administration, it became clear that an impeachment inquiry was the only course of action to complete our necessary and important investigations.

Let me explain why because there has been some confusion and some controversy about this.

Mr. Speaker, there are three irrefutable facts that have taken us to this point.

One, President Biden lied directly to the American people.

Two, President Biden's family and their associates profited millions through shell companies.

Three, President Biden's Federal agencies are stonewalling our legitimate congressional inquiry.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many scandals. There is so much corruption that is being uncovered. Every stone that we overturn leads to more and more corruption.

Because of that, Mr. Speaker, a lot of the American people are simply getting lost in the barrage of evidence, in the barrage of allegations of corruption, and the evidence itself.

Let me go through just a couple of highlights here to bring everybody's attention to this to help explain why we are doing what we are doing.

In August 2019, President Biden said: ``I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period.''

Two months later, he said: ``I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We have always kept everything separate.''

He then doubled down on those claims during the debates, and both Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre have echoed that straight from the White House press briefing room.

Make no mistake about this: Everyone now knows those were all bald- faced lies.

While President Biden was Vice President, we know now that he had dinner at least twice with his son, Hunter, and Russian and Kazakhstani oligarchs. He spoke on the phone at least 20 times with Hunter's associates.

He met with CEFC, a Chinese energy company, while Hunter was working on their behalf.

Here is a text message from Hunter Biden that alone is justification for an inquiry: ``Z--Please have the director call me, not James or Tony or Jim. Have him call me tonight. I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.''

A confidential human source, known well to the FBI and relied upon often, alleged that President Biden received a $5 million bribe for services rendered.

The House Oversight Committee investigation has been going on for a while, and the investigation has yielded many important facts. Here are a couple of examples the investigators have found.

They found that Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two at least 15 times and engaged in activities that Devon Archer testified were to sell the brand and enrich the Biden family.

They found an email from Biden associate James Gillar that breaks down the profit agreement for a deal involving the Chinese Communist Party-linked CEFC, including ``10 held by H for the big guy.''

They found a text message later that month from Gillar to Tony Bobulinski, which read: ``Don't mention Joe being involved. It is only when you are face-to-face. I know you know that, but they are paranoid.''

This is just a sampling of what we already know. This impeachment inquiry will offer House investigators greater subpoena authority to receive information from evasive Federal agencies.

We have been impeded in the collection of all this evidence because the Federal agencies under the executive branch are openly, aggressively trying to protect the President. We are going to have advanced authority now and a larger platform to share this information with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, remember how we arrived here. When the New York Post reported the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop, now-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken organized a group of 51 former intelligence officials to claim the laptop was Russian disinformation. Social media accounts were banned from sharing the story, and individuals who believed it were labeled Russian assets and conspiracy theorists.

We now know that not only was the laptop not Russian disinformation, of course, but it was known previously to the intel community and many of the individuals who signed that letter. They knew it was legitimate. They knew it was not Russian disinformation. They knew it came from Hunter Biden, and they hid it from the American people.

On July Fourth, just a couple of months ago, the Federal district court in the Western District of Louisiana, my home State, issued a 155-page court opinion. The State of Louisiana and State of Missouri sued the Biden administration because they had a hunch and knew that the White House and its agencies, including the FBI, the DOJ, and other Federal agencies, were engaged in a coverup. They were censoring and silencing the viewpoints of Americans they disagreed with. They would not allow conservative speech on the social media platforms.

We know from the evidence produced in that case and listed in the 155-page court opinion that issued an injunction against the White House. By the way, just last Saturday, that was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The court points out that Elvis Chan, the FBI official in the San Francisco field office, was meeting regularly with the Big Tech platforms in Silicon Valley leading up to the election and telling them things that they had to pull off the internet, conservative voices and social media postings that they didn't want people to see. The FBI coerced, the court said, and then coordinated with the Big Tech giants to make sure that on Facebook, Google, and Twitter at the time, and all these other platforms, you couldn't see that information.

It wasn't just the Hunter Biden laptop story. It was a lot of categories of things. It included negative information about the economy. It included people's opinions, conservative's opinions about the efficacy of COVID vaccines and the lockdowns, how crazy that was, and what they were doing to schoolchildren. All that was censored.

They even took down jokes about the President. If you posted a parody about President Biden, even as a candidate or after he was elected, it was pulled off the internet.

It is unbelievable. It is staggering. The judge's words in the court that this is arguably the largest and the greatest attack on free speech in U.S. history. He called it Orwellian. He said it was dystopian.

This is what we are facing. This is what this White House has been involved in. They did not want the American people to have the facts, and that is one of the reasons that we have to go to this next step.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, we have to follow these facts where they lead. The facts are irrefutable. They have understandably set Washington ablaze, even though the American people weren't able to see it. The judge said that millions of free-speech-protected postings were taken down from the internet and not seen. Yet, it has set Washington ablaze. Why? Because we are bringing these facts to bear. We are laying them out for people to see.

Our colleagues here, some of them, don't want to see it. As John Adams said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' As expected, the D.C. and national press corps have blindly accepted the White House's spin and are trying to convince the American people that our inquiry, even the impeachment inquiry, is illegitimate just 3 years after they carried the water for Adam Schiff and the Democrats on their crazy impeachment quests against Donald Trump.

Here is a sampling of the headlines so far. Now, remember, we just announced the impeachment inquiry step yesterday. Here it is so far.

From Time magazine: ``Biden inquiry may be weakest in history.''

From CNN: ``The most predictable impeachment investigation in American history.''

From Reuters: ``McCarthy opens long-shot impeachment probe of Biden.''

From MSNBC: ``McCarthy's Biden impeachment inquiry is the Benghazi investigation on steroids.''

These headlines are going to increase. We know it is coming. We know that they are working against us, against the American people, in this case, and for the White House. They are on their team. We get it.

CNN is reporting this week that the White House is urging news executives to ramp up scrutiny of our investigation. In fact, now there is a memo going around that they sent to all the big news agencies. As if weaponizing the Federal agencies wasn't enough, President Biden is now publicly directing the free press to play defense for him. Do you know what? They are willingly going along with it.

Mr. Speaker, why? I am just going to ask this question. It is a rhetorical one. Nobody can answer it here, of course, but we are trying to seek the answer to this. I think we know. If there was no impropriety, why wouldn't the President provide congressional investigators with all the information we have requested? What do they have to hide?

The President could make the short trip from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue tomorrow. He could sit down with our committees. He could clear his name. We could do that behind closed doors. We could do it very discreetly, with all the protection he needs. In fact, we would welcome it.

Let this be an open invitation to President Biden. I know the White House is recording all this. They are watching what we do here. Here is the open invitation: President Biden, Secretary Blinken, any of the Biden family members and associates, or anyone who seeks to clear their name, anybody involved in this investigation at all, you can come right here. You are welcome here in Congress to our committees.

We on the House Judiciary Committee, House Oversight Committee, Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Ways and Means Committee, any of them--pick your committee--and we will bring you in and you can clear your name.

Mr. Speaker, we would love to return our full focus to our regular and important work here, but the fact is our sworn oath to defend the Constitution

requires this inquiry. I will close with this--and I am going to bring up a couple of my colleagues who will share their thoughts, as well-- but remember that Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution itself expressly states that the sole power of impeachment belongs here to this House. Then Article II, Section 4 says--listen to the language carefully. It is expressly written in the Constitution. These are not political talking points. We are not making this up. It says in Article II, Section 4 that the President shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Mr. Speaker, I listed just a small sampling, just the tip of the iceberg of the credible allegations and the mounting evidence that shows that Joseph Biden has engaged in bribery schemes, pay-to-play schemes. This is what the evidence shows.

We have to follow it. We took an oath to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution requires this action. The inquiry is the appropriate step. We have no choice but to pursue the facts wherever they lead, and we will leave no stone unturned.

Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the great gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), not only a Super Bowl champion but also a wonderful Congressman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Fulcher).

Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman before he leaves the podium today: I was told by automobile dealers who were in my office from the district that the State of California has banned the combustion engine. Is that a rumor or is that true?

I yield to the gentleman from Idaho.

Isn't it true then that if California, which is one of the largest markets for vehicles, bans the sale of the combustion engine, then the car manufacturers, if they want to do business in California, are going to have to shift lots of their production lines to these vehicles that, by the way, no one wants, and they are not affordable or maintainable. As I understand it, if the battery goes it costs you another $100,000 for an already overpriced vehicle that no one wants or can charge up. Isn't that then going to affect the automobile market in every other State, and your ability to get a truck or a car?

Exactly.

Mr. Speaker, I think the people are calling upon us to bring common sense to this equation because this team on the other side who is pushing this radical climate agenda is engaged in fantasy economics.

The people in my State of Louisiana need their trucks and cars. They are not going to buy electric vehicles. They can't afford them, first of all. It is not practical because there is nowhere to charge them in my State.

If we have a shortage of vehicles on the market that is going to be a real problem. I am told delivery trucks are involved in this in California, and if you can't get the fruit shipped from California, that means the prices at the grocery store are going to go up, as well. Everyone is going to suffer from this; isn't that true?

Mr. Speaker, it is about government control. I thank the gentleman for his work on that, and we urge our colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), the gentleman from the northern portion of California.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his remarks.

Sadly, what happens in California, that giant market out there, affects the entire country. I appreciate him shining light on that.

Mr. Speaker, I will wind down our Special Order hour just by returning to the issue of the impeachment inquiry.

Even as I have been sitting here, I got a question from a Hill reporter about some of the Senators in the other Chamber and their reaction to our bringing forward the impeachment inquiry.

I just want to say that, to speak very frankly, whether or not the Senate is courageous enough to confront the alleged corruption of President Biden is not really the House's concern.

As I mentioned earlier, it is Article I of the Constitution, Section 2, that gives the sole power of impeachment to us in the House. We are supposed to investigate these things. We have to do it. It is our constitutional responsibility. They will later try the matter, if it comes to them.

If our committee uncovers evidence, if our investigations uncover evidence that lead to an impeachment vote indeed, then it will be incumbent, when we send it over to the Senate, to decide if they want to engage with those facts. They will have to answer to their own constituents and voters and the American people, but we will have done our job here.

If the inquiry comes up fruitless, say some evidence is determined and uncovered that completely exonerates

President Biden, then we will have concluded a legitimate congressional inquiry as directed by the Constitution, and we will be satisfied with that and the American people will be satisfied. Some will be frustrated whatever happens at the outcome of this, but the Constitution will have been followed and upheld. On our side, that is the most important thing here.

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

Mr. Speaker, on July 26, 2023, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 372.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, we are just 2 days away from the August district work period, and on Friday our colleagues will return home to our 435 districts across this great country.

I know on the Republican side everyone will be holding townhalls and roundtables, and they will meet with constituents and businessowners. They will be with the people that we represent here in the people's House. We have so much to relay to them.

This has been a busy 7 months in this Congress, and House Republicans have

passed a lot of important legislation. We are keeping our commitment to America that we ran on in the last election cycle.

Here is a short list: The Lower Energy Costs Act. We passed that and it unleashed American energy production.

The Secure the Border Act is the most comprehensive border security package ever passed by the United States Congress.

The Parents Bill of Rights Act ensures that parents have a seat at the table.

The National Defense Authorization Act that is full of important priorities and pushes back on radical leftist policy in our military.

There is so much more. I could spend the entire designated hour going through the list of major accomplishments.

The House Republicans also, by the way, ended the COVID-19 national emergency. We rescinded two backwards D.C. crime bills. We have conducted rigorous oversight of an administration that has played fast and loose with the rule of law.

Not long ago, discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop was literally blocked on social media--I mean, literally. We have a 155-page Federal court opinion in the landmark litigation, Missouri and Louisiana v. Biden. The court looked at volumes of evidence and deliberated for months and issued a preliminary injunction order explained in these 155 pages.

The court says that the facts show very clearly that the Biden administration and its agencies, including the DOJ, FBI, CDC, Department of Homeland Security, and others, were engaged in a whole- of-government censorship effort. They censored and silenced and suppressed the viewpoints of Conservatives, specifically online. They met routinely with the social media companies and told them to pull down voices and messages they disagreed with, so-called misinformation that none of them obviously can define. They blatantly violated the Constitution and the First Amendment.

The court said that if all of these allegations are true--and that is what the facts show--it is, arguably, the most massive attack on free speech in the history of the United States. That is what the court said, not Republicans. We have been on that and we have been investigating that.

News organizations just a few months ago called Members who dared to question the narrative about the Hunter Biden laptop as conspiracy theorists and extremists.

Thanks to the work of our various committees, not only has this information been verified, but we have uncovered a wealth of information not only linking Hunter Biden to illegal activities, but very likely the President himself.

We will take this time during the August work period to continue to share all these important facts with the American people. I am encouraged that people are following these developments and they are demanding accountability.

Mr. Speaker, we have a great lineup of Republican Members here tonight to speak during our hour.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Van Orden), my good friend and a former Navy SEAL.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Van Orden for his service to this country and for his expertise on this, it is greatly appreciated.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, he made some great points.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Babin. He is right. That woke agenda has had a corrosive effect on the culture. Today I was reading a new Gallup poll, only 18 percent of 18- to 34- year-olds are now extremely proud to be an American. It is just shocking. That is the result. Ideas have consequences.

Mr. Speaker, we will go from Texas all the way up to New York.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his very important points. It is hard to be connected at all if we don't have broadband. It is related to health, education, and every aspect of our lives now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. There is so much wisdom coming out of California that I will stay with the theme.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte), who is one of the most intelligent and thoughtful Members of the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend. He never uses notes when he speaks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), who is a good Southern gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for speaking about very important priorities for Louisiana, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller- Meeks).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Miller-Meeks for clarifying the record, for her expertise, and for 24 years in the U.S. Army as a nurse and a doctor. I really appreciate her good word on that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley), who is overqualified to be serving in Congress, one of the brightest we have.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have had so many of our colleagues here tonight to share not only about these important appropriations bills but also to recount some of the many really important legislative victories and oversight responsibilities that we have fulfilled here in the first 7 months of this Congress.

As I said in the opening, when we all go home now for this August district work period, we have a very important story to tell the American people.

We will continue to share the facts. We will continue to encourage them by the good work being done here.

The other thing we have to do, of course, is to continue to defend and support their faith in our institutions because, right now, faith in those institutions is at an all-time low.

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

I wish to include in the Record the following letter from the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association expressing opposition to Section 813 of the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act.

July 18, 2023.

Dear Members of Congress: We write to urge you to oppose

the weakening of a law that protects the millions of sports

fans and spectators who attend professional and collegiate

spotting events each year. The current statutory ban on

aircraft--including unmanned aircraft systems (``UAS'') or

drones--flying over large stadium sporting events throughout

the country provides necessary safety and security

protections against real and potential threats.

We are deeply concerned about section 813 of the House

version of the Federal Aviation Administration (``FAA'')

Reauthorization Act. If adopted, the language would establish

a broad and complex waiver program that would permit

countless aircraft to fly near and over stadiums during

games, putting millions of fans at risk, and unnecessarily

so. Congress wisely eliminated a similar waiver program back

in 2003, after discovering troubling and persistent failures,

gaps, and vulnerabilities in the process for conducting

background checks and issuing waivers.

The FAA first established flight restrictions over large

stadium sporting events immediately following the terrorist

attacks of September 11, 2001, in response to concerns about

terrorists using aircraft as weapons. Congress subsequently

twice codified and strengthened these restrictions, providing

specific criteria for aircraft operations permitted within

the flight restricted area. Section 813 would effectively

eliminate the specific criteria and replace it with an open-

ended waiver program.

The long-standing, congressionally mandated flight

restriction enhances the safety and security of large stadium

events, while minimizing the disruption to the National

Airspace System (''NAS''). Specifically, airspace over large

stadiums--with a seating capacity of 30,000 people or more

and where a NFL, MLB, and NCAA Division 1 football games or

major motor speedway events, such as NASCAR and INDYCAR

races, are taking place--is closed to all aircraft from one

hour before until one hour after a major sporting event. The

flight restrictions extend to three nautical miles from the

center of the stadium and from the surface to 3,000 feet

above the stadium. The flight restrictions do not apply to

authorized aircraft, such as Department of Defense, law

enforcement or air ambulance flight operations, or those in

contact with air traffic control for take offs and landings

at nearby airports, among others.

Having devoted substantial resources to secure our stadiums

on the ground, we regard the stadium flight restriction as

essential to safeguarding the airspace overhead. Moreover,

given the proliferation of UAS in our NAS, as well as the

continuing need to remain vigilant to other current and

emerging risks, the stadium flight restriction is as vital

now as ever to our national security and public safety. We

believe section 813 complicates the airspace over stadiums,

compromises public safety and security, and courts potential

disaster.

We, therefore, urge you to uphold current law and maintain

existing flight restrictions that protect the safety and

security of millions of fans who attend large stadium

sporting events every year.

Sincerely,

Cathy Lanier,

Chief Security Officer, National Football League.

David Thomas,

Vice President, Security and Ballpark Operations, Major

League Baseball.

Bill Rhodes,

Managing Director, Security, National Association for Stock

Car Auto Racing.

Dan Gavitt,

Senior Vice President, National Collegiate Athletic

Association.

Madam Speaker, this week, Congress is going to take up one of the most consequential pieces of legislation that this body has considered in years.

Despite the lack of fanfare from the national media, the REINS Act is a very important piece of legislation and has the potential to overhaul the Federal bureaucracy, overhaul what many of us and many of my constituents back in Louisiana refer to as part of the deep state. It also has the potential to restore Congress' constitutional role as the chief rulemaking body in America.

However, to understand the necessity of this bill, it is important that we take a step back for just a moment and examine how Congress has ceded our lawmaking authority to nameless, faceless bureaucrats that aren't accountable to anyone: not to voters and really, largely, not even to those of us in Congress.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution itself declares that: ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. . . . '' All. All legislative powers.

The Founders intended that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, of course--a radical idea that suggests that laws are unjust unless they come from the people. The way that is done in our system, in our unmatched constitutional Republic, is that it comes from the people through their duly elected Representatives in Congress. This idea, of course, was espoused originally by principles originated in the Nation's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence.

The Founders, having signaled their intent to break free from the world's most powerful nation were fearful of the undue power and influence of an absolute monarch, but of course, tyranny in any of its forms is an evil.

Therefore, they created this system, this system that we have, with separation of powers, checks and balances, one that provides elected Representatives with the authority to make the laws, an executive to implement them, and a judiciary to call the balls and strikes about disputes over that.

However, through the decades of congressional disinterest in lawmaking and an ever-growing Federal bureaucracy, the executive branch has usurped Congress' role as the rulemaking authority in America.

It is important to note that this development has been somewhat of a slow creep, and it is not a sinister plan to upend Congress' authority. You can mostly blame the Congress itself for this having happened.

Here is what has occurred: For decades, Congress has really willfully delegated its authority to Federal agencies, through passage of a patchwork of spending bills and the ``vote now, read later'' mindset. It also allows some of the duly elected Representatives of the people to evade their responsibilities because they don't have to take tough votes. If you can just make bureaucrats do it, it is a lot easier.

However, think of the results of this. Just consider this one statistic: In 2021 alone, Congress here passed 143 laws, that is bills that passed both Chambers and were signed into law by the President. In that same year, by comparison, Federal agencies enacted 3,257 rules. That is 23 times the number of laws actually duly passed by the Congress.

Unfortunately, these rules often serve the interests of liberal and progressive causes. That is the effect of it. They cater to the desires of environmental groups, unions, LGBTQ activists, and those who want to abolish the Second Amendment. We have example after example after example.

Progressives have realized that congressional inaction has opened a window to usher in this agenda outside of the legislative or electoral framework. Their ideas aren't popular at the ballot box, so they entrust Federal agencies to do all that bidding behind closed doors. It is not American.

Frankly, my concerns with the growth of the administrative state are viewpoint neutral. I don't somehow quietly hope for a similarly sized Federal Government that serves conservative political interests. No, we are intellectually consistent in this.

Reining in the administrative state is not about retribution. It is about restoration; restoration of our founding principles, the things that made our great Nation in the first place. That is why passing the REINS Act is a critical first step in achieving these goals.

This bill would reassert the Article I legislative authority of Congress and prevent excessive overreach by the executive branch in the Federal rulemaking process. What it means is that every new major rule proposed by Federal agencies would be subject to congressional scrutiny before going into effect. We define ``major rule'' as any regulation with an annual effect on the economy of over $100 million, any major increase in cost or prices for consumers, or any significant adverse impact on competition, employment, investment, or productivity of U.S.- based enterprises.

By quick way of example, if Congress would have passed this bill in the last session, President Biden's student loan bailout, his ban on oil and gas lease sales, his plan to allow retirement funds to consider ESG, and even the mandated climate risk disclosures would all have been subject to an up-or-down vote by the people's duly elected Representatives in this body.

Instead, in President Biden's first year, he finalized 69 regulations that carried over a $100 million price tag or significantly impacted the economy. Those regulations add up to more than $200 billion-- billion with a b--in regulatory costs, and Congress wasn't even consulted to approve one dime of it.

The REINS Act represents a long overdue first step in restoring accountability and reducing government overreach. I am really grateful that House Republicans have prioritized this bill this week. We will pass it off this floor. We will send it to the Senate, and hopefully we can rein in the bloated government that is controlling all of our lives.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order.

Madam Speaker, House Republicans are here, yet again, to urge President Biden to avoid the impending default crisis and strike a deal with House Republicans. We have to do this.

For over 100 days now, Joe Biden and Democrats have wasted valuable time refusing to offer a reasonable solution to raise the debt ceiling and prevent our Nation from default.

House Republicans did our job. We did it here. We passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act almost 3 weeks ago. Our bill is a really important measure because it will do a number of things. It will save taxpayers nearly $5 trillion. It will set commonsense caps on future spending levels. It will grow the economy, it will increase American energy production, it will lower prices on working families, it will defund this administration's aggressive expansion of the IRS, and it lifts the debt ceiling.

This is responsible legislation. We got together, and we did our job. The bill has not changed, and neither has our position. We will not, under any circumstances, accept a clean debt ceiling increase. We can't do that. We have stewardship responsibility.

Our fiscal house is not in order here, and this negotiation may be the only real opportunity that Congress has to address Washington's spending obsession and begin to get our debt under control until the next election cycle.

We are $31.7 trillion in Federal debt. Inflation is sky high, interest rates are only continuing to rise, and, yet, what does this President do?

Joe Biden can barely be bothered to address the threat of collapse of our financial system.

The entire debate is symptomatic of the unmitigated rot that has afflicted Washington. Our constituents know the parties have to negotiate; the markets know we need to negotiate; and until a decade ago, Joe Biden did himself.

We have all these quotes on record. I mean, as recently as 2011, when he was in charge on the Senate side, he was over here negotiating with the House. He said over and over how important this was, how important it is to the process, and how anyone who says it is only my way or the highway was being irresponsible.

Do you know what? He was right. We are just asking him to live by his own mantra. Look, I am confident that the White House will come to its senses soon. It has to. If not, Americans know there is only one person to blame. It is President Biden.

Celebrating National Police Week

Madam Speaker, while we are dealing with that, we also recognize and are delighted to celebrate National Police Week.

It is my honor to lead this group of speeches tonight honoring the men and women who risk their lives daily to keep our communities safe.

I am the son of a first responder who was critically injured and permanently disabled in the line of duty.

My dad was the assistant fire chief in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1984. September 17 of that year, he was burned over 80 percent of his body, third-degree burns.

He had about a 5 percent chance to live. He miraculously survived, and he struggled with those injuries for decades longer.

I lost him just 3 days before I got elected to Congress. I know personally the risk that first responder families face every single day.

Madam Speaker, we aren't just on the floor speaking tonight. We have work product to back up what we are saying. House Republicans have made support for law enforcement a central part of our agenda in this Congress.

This week, we passed multiple pieces of legislation to support these brave men and women. Today, we passed the POLICE Act, which makes assaulting a law enforcement officer a deportable offense for those in the country illegally.

This bill's passage could not come soon enough because, as we know, both illegal immigration and assaults on police officers continue to rise. Increased penalties like these will help deter future attacks against officers.

We also passed the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Service Weapon Purchase Act, which gives officers the option to purchase their service weapon at fair market value once they retire. It is just commonsense legislation.

Tomorrow, we are going to pass H. Con. Res. 40. This resolution condemns efforts to defund or dismantle local law enforcement agencies, and it also condemns attacks against police officers.

Just today, we watched sadly as Chicago laid to rest Officer Areanah Preston, who was tragically shot and killed outside of her home this month in a targeted attack.

Officer Preston was just 24 years old, fresh-faced and idealistic, eager to serve the people of Chicago, but her life was cut short due, in part, to dangerous antipolice rhetoric, rhetoric often used in these Halls, and it is a shame.

Madam Speaker, one would think that a resolution condemning attacks on police officers would pass through this House, of course, unanimously. Do you know what? That wasn't the case last night. Two Democrats in this body, one of which has paid astonishing sums of money for armed personal security, voted against this measure.

This problem goes far beyond just those two Members in question. As I have recounted multiple times in our House Judiciary Committee, dozens of members of the House Democratic Caucus have publicly called to either defund or dismantle police departments when America lost its collective mind during the summer of 2020.

This is exactly why it is so important that House Republicans lead the charge in support of law enforcement, and we will.

After 4 years of inaction and demonization of these heroic officers, the people's House now decisively backs the blue.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to be joined by a number of my colleagues, some of the stars of the House, and I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lawler).

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for his compelling testimony. We took the House Judiciary Committee to lower Manhattan just a few weeks back, right in Alvin Bragg's backyard, the Soros-funded D.A. We let victims of crime tell their tragic stories. It was really something to hear. There is a lot to be said about this issue.

Madam Speaker, I yield to another great gentleman from New York (Mr. Williams).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his good work and for his service, as well, and we will take care of the veterans. That is what Republicans do.

That bill passed out of the Appropriations Committee sends a strong message that that was, let's say, misinformation by the other side about the veterans' funding.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from the State of Utah (Mr. Owens), my dear friend and a Super Bowl champion.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. That was so well said. I thank him for highlighting those specific examples of brave men and women in the State of Utah who put on the badge every day to do that really important job.

Madam Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Strong), a great Member.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I thank him for his service. I didn't know that about his bio. That is impressive. I am really, really grateful, as we all are, for those who gave their lives in the line of duty, and we do pray blessings over their families and all those left behind.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird), somebody who knows a little bit about sacrifice, one of my favorite people in the world.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for his service in keeping us safe.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley).

Madam Speaker, I yield next to another gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend for his comments and the really sad state of things in California with so much that is going on there. You are right, it is a blue State that really needs to get its act together. I am glad that we can come here and have this opportunity to honor men and women in law enforcement as you have, so I thank you for that.

Madam Speaker, as my friend was speaking here about officers lost in the line of duty, I was just looking over some statistics. On the web page that is titled: ``Officer Down Memorial Page'' they honor officers who are killed in the line of duty. They have a listing of the total line of duty deaths. So far this year we are sadly at number 42.

I did not realize this until I was just sitting here doing the research, but my State of Louisiana is in the lead by total deaths by State as they are all listed.

I would just close this Special Order hour by saying that there really aren't words. We can come to the floor of the people's House here, and we can share our thoughts and share our hearts. We can pray for the families of those who are lost in the line of duty and all those who serve so bravely each day, but words really do not do justice to the level of risk that is taken by those who put on the badge every day and go out and do that hard job. We need more of them. They represent the best of America, and we know that.

All of my House Republican colleagues honor those who have served. We honor their families for their sacrifices and certainly those who have been lost in the line of duty.

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

Mr. Speaker, there has been so much misinformation here on the floor today, I think we have got to set the facts straight here.

It is clear that providing refuge for individuals fleeing persecution has been a central tenet of U.S. immigration law for decades. The asylum process itself is a testament to America's history as a beacon of hope, freedom, and opportunity for millions around the world.

However, here is the deal: Unfortunately, drug cartels, activist judges, human smuggling operations, the open borders lobby, and radical liberal administrations have worked in tandem to undermine that system, to undermine the integrity of the U.S. immigration system itself, and in the process they have weakened protections for those who are truly seeking a safe haven from persecution by forcing them into a yearslong line in immigration court.

Look, we all agree that the current asylum system is in desperate need of repair, and the Secure the Border Act provides the necessary tools to fix it.

We are hearing all kinds of fearmongering today from the other side. It is not a surprise. There will be hand-wringing and name-calling. We hear these accusations that Republicans are anti-immigrant and inhumane. We hear grandiose pronouncements that the Democrats are pro- immigrant and pro-humanitarian values, but all of this is to try their best to distract the American people from what they are seeing with their own eyes. The chaos at the border is intentional. It is designed by this administration, Mayorkas, and Biden himself.

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I ask you, what is humane about a human smuggler abandoning a 1-year-old child in a diaper at the U.S.-Mexico border?

What pro-immigrant policy is pursued with aliens suffocating to death in tractor-trailers and freight train cars?

What are the humanitarian principles behind policies that encourage child trafficking, sexual exploitation, and violence directed toward some of society's most vulnerable people?

If you are going to be pro-immigrant and support humanitarian values, you have to fix these problems, and that is what we are trying to do here today.

Being pro-immigrant and supporting humanitarian values does not mean maintaining the disastrous status quo because all that is going to do is give us more death, more exploitation, more real tangible harm to aliens and citizens alike.

Mr. Speaker, we live in the greatest country in the history of the world; it is not even close. We are the most benevolent people in the history of the world. We have a rich history of an asylum program, protecting people who need it, but we have to fix this. These frivolous asylum claims are creating backlogs in the courts.

I drafted the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act. It is a big chunk of this immigration package today. We are trying to fix this so that we can do our duty as the humanitarian people that we are.

Our bill necessarily codifies key terms; it makes uniform interpretations regardless of geography; and it reserves asylum for the people who truly need it. Our bill will prevent this flood of frivolous asylum applications that are running rampant and close the loopholes.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the Secure the Border Act. Our country's stability, sovereignty, and security depend upon this. The stakes could not be any higher.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I have some of the most influential leaders in the House Republican Conference to address some of the key issues we are addressing this week together in the people's House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield first to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Murphy).

Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate that. I am a proud cosponsor with you of the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act because we recognize biology is not bigotry, it is reality. It is a very good bill, and we will pass it this week.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield next to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), the Super Bowl champion.

I am so grateful for your expertise and wisdom and all the years you worked with troubled and incarcerated youth. This gentleman knows that of which he speaks.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield next to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Thank you for drawing attention to it because energy security is national security, as we say all the time.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield next to my great friend, the great gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany).

From one father to another, I thank you for those strong words. We will do that. That is our obligation.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield next to my friend and classmate, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend who is always a voice of great credibility and reason.

You're exactly right, and I am glad you highlighted that the first 100 days of this Congress under Republican leadership has been remarkably successful. As you said here, this week and in the days ahead, our important work has really just begun. We have a lot more to do.

Mr. Speaker, in my remarks this evening, I would speak very briefly as a father.

We have to defend women's sports. My wife, Kelly, and I have been blessed with four amazing children. Two of them are bright, beautiful young women who were high school athletes themselves. But today, radical transgender ideology is threatening the very same opportunities that my girls had, and all of our girls have had.

This week, Congress is going to send a clear message: We will not stand by and tolerate the erosion of fair and equal competition in women's sports.

We know that right now women's freedom to play sports at competitive, collegiate, and professional levels epitomizes how far we have come in breaking down so many boundaries.

How in the world have we gotten to this point where women's ability to compete on a fair playing field is in question?

Mr. Speaker, this week, Congress will vote, and we are going to pass out of this House the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.

We will address one of the major problems stemming from today's extreme liberal ideology, all of these activists.

Just in the last few years, we have seen countless instances of men competing in women's sports at all stages of competition. It is not fair.

Our legislation would simply aim to crack down on this backwards policy by prohibiting federally funded education programs or activities of any kind from allowing biological men and boys to participate in the programs or activities designed for women.

Biology is not bigotry. It is reality. Our legislation will make clear that one's gender, their sex, is based on their reproductive biology. It is our obligation; it is our duty and responsibility here to protect and defend the rights of women and girls across this country to compete and succeed in sports.

I am proud to cosponsor the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, and I am glad that that legislation will accomplish that very thing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 52 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, April 20, 2023, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, this week, we are observing the second annual celebration of Faith Month.

Concerned Women for America and other sponsors are encouraging legislators across our country to give public display of our personal faith freely and openly. What a great exercise this is.

Of course, even though there is a dangerous trend today to discourage the display or depiction of the exercise of our faith in the public square--certainly, there is a move to keep religion out of politics and to rigidly enforce the so-called separation of church and state--the Founders of this country would have certainly supported our efforts here today.

Indeed, this common misunderstanding about the separation concept-- and it is an important one--is one that is useful for us to address. I think today is a good day to do it. In fact, it is one of my favorite subjects. It is a topic that I have debated and written and taught university courses on for about 25 years, about a quarter of a century. For two of those decades, I was in the courts defending religious freedom cases. I learned during that time that I really believe that this is among the most misunderstood subjects in our entire culture.

You see, most people today who insist upon a rigid separation of church and state are unaware that that phrase derives not from the Constitution itself, of course, but from a personal letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. He explained that because ``religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God,'' the language of the First Amendment is a vital safeguard of our ``rights of conscience.''

Jefferson said he revered ``that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state.''

That is what he wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, but Jefferson clearly did not mean that metaphorical wall was to keep religion from influencing issues of civil government. To the contrary, it was meant to keep the Federal Government from impeding the religious practice of citizens.

The Founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around. The majority of the Founders, having personally witnessed the abuses of the Church of England, were determined to prevent the official establishment of any single national denomination or religion.

Of course, we know that, but here is the point. They very deliberately listed religious liberty, the free exercise of religion, as the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights because--here is the key--they wanted everyone to freely live out their faith as that would ensure a robust presence of moral virtue in the public square and the free marketplace of ideas.

Volumes written on this topic can be summarized probably best and most concisely by reference to the sentiments of our first two Presidents.

In his historic Farewell Address, President George Washington, of course, famously said: ``Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.''

Our second President, John Adams, came next, and he said: ``Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''

What these two Founders and their fellow patriots all understood from history was that there are many important rules and practices that can help build and sustain a healthy republic, but the key and essential foundation of a system of government like ours must be a common commitment among the citizenry to the principles of religion and morality.

The Founders acknowledged in the Declaration the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and that God gives all men the same inalienable rights. However, they knew that in order to maintain a ``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' as Lincoln later articulated, in ``this nation, under God,'' those inalienable rights must be exercised in a responsible manner.

They thus believed in liberty that is legitimately constrained by a common sense of morality and a healthy fear of the creator who granted all men our rights.

The Founders understood that all men are fallen and that power corrupts. They also knew that no amount of institutional checks and balances and decentralization of power in civil authorities would be sufficient to maintain a just government if the men in charge had no fear of eternal judgment by a power higher than their temporal institutions.

A free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue because those convictions in the minds and hearts of the people make it possible to preserve their essential freedoms by emphasizing and inspiring individual responsibility and self-sacrifice and the dignity of hard work, the rule of law, civility, patriotism, the value of family and community, and the sanctity of every single human life.

They knew that this would be important, and without these virtues indispensably supported by religion and morality, every nation would ultimately fail.

Inscribed on the third panel of the Jefferson Memorial here in Washington is a sobering reminder to every American. It says: ``God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?''

This a great time to preserve our faith. We can never back down. I thank the Concerned Women for America.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to pause here for 5 seconds, and I will tell you why.

I did that to note something. I did that because I want to note that our Federal Government just spent $1 million in 5 seconds--$1 million. By the time I finish this speech, the government will have spent over $50 million. By the time my colleagues finish their speeches, that figure will be in the hundreds of millions.

As it stands right now, our government is spending $197,000 per second, which as a recent publication by the America First Policy Institute points out, is faster than the speed of light.

Let's look at this graphic here real quick.

My staff just ran this up on the copy machine because I wanted to blow it up. This is a post by the AFPI. They point out the fastest things on the Earth, and they note that we are actually spending right now faster than the speed of light. The speed of light is 186,282 miles per second. We are spending $197,000 per second.

Our national debt is well over $31 trillion right now--$31 trillion.

Now, if those figures alarm you, Mr. Speaker, you are not alone. Everybody on our side of the aisle is deeply concerned about this. We understand what a risk it is to our national security and to the stability of our constitutional Republic.

However, you won't find anyone--hardly anyone, I think--on the other side of the aisle who understands this or agrees with it. I mean, based upon their voting records, based upon their proposals to continue to raise taxes and raise spending, based upon some of the speeches they gave here on the floor tonight, they don't get it, and neither does the mainstream media. That ought to be of even greater concern to you.

Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office released a frightening report. All Members of Congress in a bipartisan fashion met in the congressional auditorium this afternoon to hear the CBO Director relay some of this really frightening information.

It is about our economic outlook. If you haven't heard about it yet, it is because really the media is not covering this. The 24-hour news cycle buries it for the next big thing, but there is hardly anything bigger than this.

Let me give you a couple of the highlights that came out of that briefing this afternoon:

Number one: Net interest on our national debt will reach $10.5 trillion over the next decade.

Now, I know these numbers are big and it is sort of hard to grasp them, but you think about $10.5 trillion over the next 10 years. For reference, listen to this: since 1940 the total net interest payments on our national debt has been $12.9 trillion, adjusted for inflation. Since 1940.

In the next 10 years, we are going to spend $10.5 trillion just on interest alone. It is staggering. Our national debt is going to reach $154 trillion by 2053--$150-plus trillion. That equals $540,000 per household when you adjust for inflation. That is more than four times the current median household income.

Deficits are going to average--average--$2 trillion annually, or 6.1 percent of our gross domestic product over the next 10 years. The government had a lower deficit than this every single year from 1945 to 2009. The cost of the annual interest will balloon from $350 billion to $1.4 trillion in just a decade. That is 20 cents of every tax dollar that is collected by this Federal Government is going to go to paying interest on America's debt.

Mr. Speaker, we are in uncharted economic waters. We have never seen anything like this. Our country has only faced an economic threat like this during times of war and pandemic. If you only listen to the media and Democrat politicians, all of our colleagues over here, you would think there is really no issue at all.

I mean, the Biden administration continues to portray this rosy outlook. They were saying it today: the state of the economy isn't so bad. We are doing well. We are trending in the right direction, they say. That is absolutely not true.

The CBO, by the way, is a nonpartisan entity. They don't choose a side. They just came in and presented the objective facts to Republicans and Democrats because we want to make everybody face this harsh reality.

President Biden has touted that his administration ``cut $1.7 trillion of the deficit.'' He says that is evidence that he is really serious about the national debt, but that is obviously fiction as well. That reduction naturally occurred with the statutory end of the increased spending that Congress approved to combat COVID-19. That wasn't because of any shrewd economic policy from the White House. It is exactly the opposite.

Speaking of economic madness, you know, tomorrow the President is expected to release his 2023 budget proposal. It is more than a month late. Every news report, all the early ones, suggest that his budget is replete with trillions of dollars in new taxes, raising taxes in the middle of an inflation crisis that he created; more spending on frivolous, liberal pet policies and projects and no plan at all to reduce the deficit.

For the first time in his Presidency, he won't have a Democrat rubber stamp over here. He won't have the Democrats in charge of this House to go along with that destructive agenda.

Mr. Speaker, the American people made their voices heard when they gave Republicans control of this House, and we are going to do our job. They have entrusted our new majority to provide a much-needed check on the Biden administration, and that starts with the power of the purse.

Over the next few months, the discourse around here is going to intensify. There is going to be some heated debate. It is likely to get off track with squabbles about everything from defense spending to earmarks, but House Republicans will not lose sight through this of the bigger picture. We are going to rein in spending and inflation because we must. We are going to promote responsible budgeting because we must. We are going to chart our country on a course back to fiscal sanity. It is the duty of every Member of this body to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield to a number of my colleagues tonight who will participate in this Special Order hour, talking about lots of important things on the hearts and minds of the American people. I just want to suggest that the debt is one of those.

Mr. Speaker, I yield first to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller), my dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for highlighting that really important issue. The WOTUS rule has gotten completely out of control.

Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from New York (Mr. D'Esposito), one of our new Members to Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his service as a police officer, law enforcement, and also now in Congress. We are delighted to have you.

Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that wise counsel. It is about responsibility, and the gentleman said it so well.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Kustoff).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks; that was so well said. The gentleman is a great orator, and I love how he laid out the case methodically. That is what a former U.S. attorney from the Western District of Tennessee would do.

Facts are stubborn things, as John Adams said.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cline), another brilliant lawyer and also my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks. The regulatory environment is just out of control, and that recent Supreme Court opinion of West Virginia v. EPA came out on our side, and I think that some of these agencies will

begin to have their wings clipped a bit, and hopefully this WOTUS rule will be handled appropriately. I thank the gentleman for highlighting that important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Brecheen), one of the new stars of the Republican Party in the Congress, a former State senator there who now represents the Second District representing his people very well.

Mr. Speaker, it is a harsh truth, and we have to address it. My colleague is right. As he implied there, the inevitable result of living beyond our means today is that we and our children inevitably are going to have to live below our means tomorrow.

We are going to have higher debt, higher taxes, less security, less opportunity. It is not going to be the same America that we have always known and valued. It is a harsh truth.

Mr. Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I point out, as he said, that our resolution blocking those crazy changes to D.C.'s criminal code was so strong that even Joe Biden couldn't agree to veto it. We are doing the right thing. We must continue, and we will.

I am grateful to my Republican colleagues for joining me for this Special Order hour.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 26 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, March 9, 2023, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao) for handling this Special Order tonight and bringing our colleagues here to talk about the reality of this State of the Union Address that we experienced here less than 24 hours ago.

I appreciate what you said, and I thought it was appropriate that you brought as your guest a constituent who is in the energy industry because you explained how domestic energy production has been decimated by this President and his administration and how it is having an untold cost on the American people.

But I wanted to begin with a quote, and I want to encourage my colleagues to listen carefully to these words of warning. This is really important.

``The tsunami of debt created by the policies of this administration has to go somewhere. . . .

``But as the rest of the world copes with the waves of U.S. debt, we are now all in the same leaky boat. There is just so much of our debt other nations want to hold. The more of it they accumulate, the closer we are to the day when they will not want any more.

``When that happens, slowly or rapidly, our interest rates will go up, the value of their U.S. bonds will drop, and we will all have big problems. We need both more awareness and more understanding of this fundamental threat to our economic well-being and the global economy.

``But the roots of that threat lie in the disastrous policies of this administration.

``Because this massive accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against the debt limit increase.''

Now, do you want to guess who said that? It was not Speaker McCarthy. It was not Leader McConnell. In fact, it wasn't any Republican.

That quote that I just read to you is from Joe Biden himself when he was a Senator in 2006. If he was honest, he would have used that same language right up here last night, but he didn't. Of course, he wasn't honest.

By the way, in addition to his vocal opposition when he was a Senator in 2003 and 2006, Senator Joe Biden joined Senate Democrats in opposing clean debt limit increases.

In 2004, he missed the vote, but he said publicly he would have opposed it there, as well. So three times as a Senator he opposed the debt limit increase.

Well, he is singing a completely different tune now. Everybody heard it.

Mr. Speaker, President Biden's address to the Nation last night was a missed opportunity. Our country is mired in crisis after crisis of the President's own making: at home, at our border, abroad.

Simply put, the President's rhetoric last night didn't match the reality that most Americans have been experiencing since he took office 2 years ago.

John Adams said, ``Facts are stubborn things,'' and the actual state of our Union is more accurately summed up by one word: decline.

Let's talk about just a couple of those facts very quickly. Just a snapshot. When President Joe Biden took office, we had peace through strength.

We had American energy independence--actually, dominance. We had lower consumer prices, and we had inflation at about 1.4 percent.

But since he took over 2 years ago, now we have war through weakness, we have foreign energy dependence, we have sky-high consumer prices, and the inflation rate in December was 6.5 percent.

Now, you tell me. Are you better off today than you were 2 years ago?

No. And that is what the polls indicate.

Most Americans say and respond to the polls that they are doing worse off financially, and in many other respects, since this President took over.

Right now, prices are still rising, crime is rising, drug overdoses are rising, illegal immigration is rising, and our country's leadership looks embarrassed and weak on the world stage.

Republicans urged President Biden to take advantage of the state of the Union to chart a new direction, to get us out of this mess, to reverse the policies that have gotten us into this, to accept responsibility for the declining state of our country, and pledge to do better.

But you know what? He didn't do that.

He wouldn't have been the first American President to seek a reset. Presidential resets are common. They are often necessary, but he wouldn't acknowledge that last night. He did the opposite.

The reality is that families right now across this country, in my district and in all of our districts--everybody knows this--are still paying more for just about everything, including food and gasoline and electricity and rent, in every category.

According to all the polls, they can feel it, regardless of what this President wants to say from this podium in this Chamber.

Here is what we need to do. We need to curb the wasteful government spending that is raising the price of groceries and gas and cars and housing and growing our national debt, and we need to increase take- home pay.

We need to create good-paying jobs and bring stability to the economy through pro-growth policies that will enliven our economy and broaden the pathway out of poverty for more people, but that is not what this President is suggesting.

You know what their solution was last night and every day here?

More government growth and more spending.

Does anybody really think that our national debt continuing to climb unchecked is an acceptable outcome in this year's debt ceiling talks?

Joe Biden himself didn't think that. At least he didn't when he was a Senator. If no one thinks that, then let's start doing something about it.

President Biden could have started last night, but he didn't. It was a missed opportunity. I think it was shameful, and I think the American people know better.

I am grateful to my friend from California for yielding the time, and I will turn it back over to him.

One of the things that the President said last night was that he wants to source materials from the U.S.; and as we have talked a little bit about energy, we have seen pictures of parts of the Amazon rainforest demolished so they can continue to drill wells over there.

So we are importing, we are damaging environments, and we are not doing it here in the U.S., creating American jobs doing it in the best way we possibly can in the world, delivering clean energy for our American people. It is totally frustrating, so I appreciate the comments from Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman).