Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 57, I mistakenly voted ``yea'' when I intended to vote ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, today, I pay tribute to the incredible service and life of Mr. Hilbert ``Hibby'' Margol of Dunwoody, Georgia. Mr. Margol is a World War II veteran and, this month, I join his friends and family in celebrating his 100th birthday.

Mr. Hilbert Margol was born on February 22, 1924, just 10 minutes before his identical twin brother, Howard. The two brothers attended the University of Florida and were drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944. They were inseparable until they were assigned to different infantry divisions.

In 1942, the military instituted a policy of separating siblings when assigned to military units or ships. Their mother, Mrs. Margol, took matters into her own hands and wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting the U.S. Army make an exception for her sons to be placed together. Her plea was successful, and the brothers were back together again.

The pair were assigned to the U.S. Army 42nd Infantry ``Rainbow'' Division, 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, as Howitzers gunners. Seven months after D-Day, the Margol brothers arrived in Europe. As their unit moved toward Munich, Germany, they happened upon a fence at the end of a rural two-lane road. They quickly realized they had stumbled upon a massive, almost industrial-looking complex. It was Dachau, the first Nazi Concentration Camp.

As Mr. Margol searched the area, he found dozens of railroad cars loaded with piles of human remains. He documented the horrors of Dachau with a Brownie camera. These photographs are on display at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

After the war, the brothers earned their degrees from the University of Florida in 1948 and married their wives in the same year. Hilbert moved to Atlanta in 1987 with his wife, Betty Ann, and they have lived there ever since.

Mr. Margol is a Jewish American hero and a liberator, and he turns 100 years old on February 22, 2024. May America and the great State of Georgia be forever blessed with patriots like Hilbert Margol. His service to our Nation is a debt we can never truly repay.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is rare in this Chamber, especially recently, that you find a bipartisan effort, especially one that is all about the people. In this case, it is about the people.

You have seen several physicians and several people from different committees from all over the Nation agree on one thing: We are not doing the right thing.

By cutting Medicare payments to individual practitioners, we have done the opposite of the right thing. We will consolidate healthcare. You lose the cheapest way to deliver healthcare to the most people.

Right now, hospital systems employ 71 percent of all physicians, and that is going up every year.

Physicians deliver healthcare at the lowest possible rate. That is a fact. By doing the Medicaid payment cuts just to physicians, not to hospital systems, just to physicians at this quantity, you are forcing more physicians to work for hospitals, which means less competition and higher prices. That is the end-all be-all to what is going to happen right now.

It is not going to save more money. It is going to mean more consolidations, more monopolistic practices, higher prices, and worse access, because physicians simply won't be out there to accept you as patients.

You will have people retire; you will have people go out of business. When those physicians aren't there to take care of you at the most rudimentary level, the best and more affordable level, you will have nothing but worse patient care and a worse environment for physicians.

Therefore, I do recommend, just like my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to do the right thing. If people in Congress on both sides of the aisle are demanding to do the right thing, why can't we make it happen?

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of us to stand with our fellow physicians in a bipartisan effort to pass legislation to prevent cuts to the Medicare payments to physicians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer an amendment to H.R. 788.

I thank Representative Gooden and the Judiciary Committee for crafting this crucial piece of legislation that will further our mission of holding the executive branch accountable.

The underlying bill is trying to fix an important issue. The Biden administration, or any administration for that matter, should not be directing settlement funds to support their radical social agendas by financing politically favored third-party entities or programs, sometimes completely unrelated to the original litigation. This practice is just wrong.

My amendment is simple. It creates transparency by requiring the annual violation audits conducted by the inspector generals in section 2(f) of this bill to be made publicly available on an accessible website. The American people deserve to know what their government is doing. If a government agency, in violation of law, is directing these settlement payments to support political agendas, the public should know.

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I am glad he does not oppose it because it is transparency on a bill that is meant to create transparency. I hope nobody opposes that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the conference report for the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

I am proud to report that this conference report includes language that I authored to both rein in government-sponsored censorship and help resolve the military recruiting crisis.

The 2024 NDAA will require advertising agencies placing military recruitment commercials to certify that they have not placed advertisements in news sources based on personal or institutional political preferences or biases or determinations of misinformation.

This language is intended to prevent the Department of Defense from contracting with advertising agencies that utilize blacklists provided by organizations like Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard, which have been found to be biased against conservative viewpoints.

Mr. Speaker, of the five Defense Department service branches, only two, the Marine Corps and Space Force, met their Active-Duty enlisted recruiting goals for fiscal year 2023. Last year, the Army missed its recruiting goals by 25 percent.

In the midst of this recruiting crisis, it makes zero sense to artificially limit the reach of our military recruitment advertisements. It is especially foolish when those limitations target the sites frequented by the people most likely to volunteer to serve.

I am grateful to Chairman Rogers, Speaker Johnson, and Ranking Member Wicker for fighting to include this important revision.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Dr. G.B. Espy, obstetrician, gynecologist, world traveler, entrepreneur, man of God, and one of the finest men I have ever known.

On January 8, Dr. Espy will turn 88 years old.

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Espy has delivered over 65,000 babies; has performed at least as many surgeries; has run 40 consecutive New York marathons, including the last one at the age of 80; and he has contributed to countless scholarships, missions, and supported friends all over the world.

Congratulations on a life well lived. God bless you. We love you. Semper Fidelis.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Mr. John Robert McGrath Sr.'s 100th birthday and honor his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Born and raised in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Mr. McGrath made the decision to join the U.S. Navy in 1942 to fight for his country. Following the end of the war, Mr. McGrath earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania before beginning his career as a mortgage banker.

Although his service to his country came to a close, his service and generosity to his community continued throughout his life, as he was known to make soup for the elderly and care for the sick. Mr. McGrath has always been a dedicated husband and father and is beloved by his large family, with ten grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. He currently lives in Roswell, Georgia.

It is an honor to celebrate Mr. McGrath on this incredible milestone, and I am proud to be his Representative. I wish him and his family many more happy years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my gratitude to the Red, Blue and You initiative that celebrates and honors the first responders of Gwinnett County, Georgia. The community event, organized by local business owners, held its 8th annual celebration on November 16, 2023. The brave men and women first responders honored at the event are the first line of defense for people in distress, and often do not receive the recognition and support they deserve. I want to thank these dedicated public safety heroes for serving their communities every single day. Their work makes a difference and impacts all those in our community. God bless each and everyone of them. Semper Fidelis.

Mr. Speaker, how often do we have a chance to do the right thing, defeat Communism, grow the economy, create jobs, reduce the deficit, and secure the southern border all at the same time?

It would be all good for America. It would be all good no matter what party you are from and no matter what part of the country you are from. This is a rare thing indeed.

I suggest we support the Make Putin Pay Act. I suggest we combine it with securing the southern border. How many opportunities are we going to have to do the right thing and use the right assets to do the mission?

We can right now use over $100 billion in frozen assets from Russia to pay for the military support required to defeat an invading Communist country into Europe.

We can secure 70 percent of Europe's grain stores so it is not sold to a foreign national government that is unfriendly, but to sustain a bigger, stronger, more friendly Europe. Meanwhile, that money is going to be spent back in the United States to support our defense industry, to create jobs, and through taxes, created by those jobs, to reduce the deficit, all while defeating our biggest adversary in the European theater.

If we can combine that with H.R. 2 and secure our southern border, even better. Let's just get this straight: We win for the economy; we win for reducing debt; we win for defeating Communism; and we win by securing our southern border. This is what we are working with right now with the Senate.

How many opportunities do we have to combine a Senate and a House resolution to actually do these things? We win, win, win, and win some more.

Mr. Speaker, I highly suggest that my comrades here in the House support the Make Putin Pay Act. It will use over $100 billion in frozen assets from Russia to support our economy, pay down debt, and secure our southern border.

Madam Chair, as the designee of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris), I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I rise to offer amendment No. 109, limiting indirect costs paid by the National Institutes of Health to a maximum of 30 percent of the total grant awarded.

Indirect costs are simply known as overhead costs. These costs are not directly attributable to the specific research project or function. These costs include facilities operation and maintenance, depreciation of buildings, and administrative expenses.

In 2021, the National Institutes of Health spent $6.7 billion on indirect costs racked up by grant recipients. Meanwhile, the top grant recipients were universities sitting on multibillion-dollar endowments.

Nonprofit organizations that provide research funding, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Alzheimer's Association, and the American Heart Association, cap indirect costs at 10 percent.

Congress has historically limited indirect costs for agricultural research to a maximum of 30 percent, which is included in the Agriculture appropriations bill.

I propose that we apply this limitation to the National Institutes of Health research to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly.

I urge all Members to consider supporting this commonsense amendment, which would dedicate more research dollars to direct research costs.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment No. 117 to H.R. 5894, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024.

My amendment No. 117 reduces the salary of Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to $1.

Secretary Becerra has chosen special interest groups over the American people and blatantly undermined congressional legislative intent with his implementation of the No Surprises Act.

The No Surprises Act, passed in 2021, was a bipartisan legislative effort to prevent unexpected medical bills from crushing Americans across the country, which over 50 percent of all Americans have experienced.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration and Secretary Becerra have not implemented the bill as Congress intended, leading to huge backlogs, unpaid claims to healthcare providers, and patients having less access to quality healthcare.

This is unacceptable, but it shouldn't be a surprise that the Biden administration appointed a lawyer to take on healthcare challenges, resulting in dismal failure.

There have been four court cases in Texas alone to address the abysmal implementation of this law, and Secretary Becerra and the Biden administration have lost all four court cases.

Patients' protection from surprise medical bills should not compromise their access to hospitals and the doctors they need. They shouldn't have the worst experience of their lives to add to the worst experience of their lives.

The solution to this is simple: Align the Federal Government regulations with what Congress intended for the bill to do and make the process for resolving disputes fair for all parties.

The solution is not only the right thing but will also avoid all the negative consequences that Congress sought to prevent for patients in the first place.

I have personally discussed this with Secretary Becerra to no avail. He continues to choose profiteers rather than patients.

America's hospitals and doctors worked hard with Congress to ensure the dispute resolution process was fair and avoided these negative consequences.

Secretary Becerra and his Federal bureaucrats have failed to honor those promises to patients and caregivers and have instead continued to ignore Congress' legislative intent.

The reason I originally ran for Congress was because of the issue of surprise billing. My first taste in politics

was going down to the State capitol with the Medical Association of Georgia, a bipartisan group of doctors, trying to resolve this problem.

I brought the fight here to D.C. to push the Federal Government to begin prioritizing and doing the right thing for patients instead of prioritizing the profit of special interest groups.

My amendment is not about political cheap shots or agendas. It is about protecting the people from a public servant who is no longer keeping their best interests at heart.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, obviously I am not a lawyer. I am a doctor. With all the experience that Mr. Becerra has, you would think he would know better.

You would think that as a Member of the House, supposedly serving the American people, who has watched bipartisan bills pass with almost unanimous consent, that he would know better. You would think as a lawyer he would know how to carry on a case and win a case when it has to do with serving the people.

Clearly, he has misrepresented something that we passed as a body, something that we agreed to as a body to serve the people. That is why he should be ashamed, and that is why the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra's salary should be reduced to $1 for being derelict in his duty and failing the American people.

I ask my colleagues for their support in passing this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House and offer the resolution that was previously noticed.

Mr. Speaker, Representative Tlaib has repeatedly made atrocious statements against our ally Israel and in support of Hamas, a terrorist group responsible for the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Represent Tlaib has levied unbelievable falsehoods about our greatest ally, Israel, and the attack on October 7. Recently, she even falsely blamed them for bombing the Al Ahli Arab hospital, but all of our current intelligence shows that Israel was not responsible.

As stated in my resolution on November 3, Representative Tlaib said: ``From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity.''

Mr. Speaker, let me break down the saying, ``From the river to the sea.'' The river is the Jordan River, and the sea is the Mediterranean Sea. This is a call for the complete destruction of Israel. It is disgusting when it is used in this context that was meant.

Representative Tlaib boycotted Israeli President Herzog's address to Congress, releasing a joint statement with Representative Bush that said: ``Bestowing President Herzog with the rare honor of a joint address to Congress while the Israeli apartheid government continues to enable and directly support racism and brutal settler attacks is a slap in the face to victims, survivors, and their loved ones. . . .''

This kind of hatred against our ally Israel is unacceptable. Israel has a right to exist. For thousands of years, the Jewish people resided in that land and, after being displaced for centuries, returned in 1948 after the Holocaust.

Mr. Speaker, we have seen the effects of the reprehensible rhetoric of Representative Tlaib across the Nation. At schools and colleges around the country, Jewish students have been forced to be on alert as their anti-Semitic peers have engaged in disgusting demonstrations, chanting anti-Semitic slogans.

At The Cooper Union, a private college in New York, Jewish students were forced to hide from pro-Hamas protesters in a library where they feared for their safety.

At George Washington University, just about a half mile from this building, students broadcast ``Glory to our martyrs,'' and ``Free Palestine from the river to the sea,'' on the side of a campus building.

Further, yesterday, in Ventura County, California, Paul Kessler, a Jewish man protesting for Israel, was killed in an altercation with pro-Palestinian protesters.

These anti-Semitic incidents are happening right now in America in 2023. Quite frankly, in my entire lifetime, I have never seen anything like it.

The same Nation that defeated Nazism in World War II must now defeat an internal rot promoting the same senseless violence and hatred of Jewish people.

It is a sad fact, but this type of anti-Semitic hate is being promoted by a small group of Members in this body--chiefly, Representative Tlaib. We must hold her accountable.

This war in Israel is affecting everyone, whether it is innocent Palestinians at risk because of Hamas' actions; or our fellow Jewish Americans, who now have to worry each day about the possibility of an anti-Semitic attack; or Sergeant Elisheva Rose Ida Lubin, a young Jewish woman who was a member of the Israeli Border Police and grew up in Dunwoody, Georgia, and was killed by a Palestinian assailant.

For the safety and security of our Nation, we must continue to support Israel, a nation fighting for democracy, decency, and Western values.

Representative Tlaib has undermined U.S. interests with her statements and must be censured.

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

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

Fine speech. You talk about setting precedents. I think there is a precedent. You guys must have searched really high and far and long to find the people who voted against censuring Paul Gosar or Marjorie Taylor Greene. There is a precedent. You are right.

When you talk about freedom of speech and who protects that freedom of speech, you are talking to a marine, and you are about to talk to a Navy SEAL, people who would give their lives to defend the freedom of speech. I understand that probably as well as anybody.

Let me be clear. This is not about a First Amendment issue. Rashida Tlaib has the right to spew anti-Semitic vitriol and even call for the destruction of the Jewish state, but the House of Representatives also has the right to make it clear that her hate speech does not reflect the opinion of the Chamber. That is what this resolution is about.

When you talk about ``from the river to the sea,'' we talked about this with the Parliamentarian, and we talked about it with legal counsel. We talked about precedent. We got the Intel Committee to make sure the facts are straight. We did our homework on whether there is a precedent on this.

If this is not worthy of censure, what is? When you can call for the annihilation of a country and its people, if that is not worthy of censure, what is?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Van Orden).

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

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

If this was about calling for a cease-fire, we would not have these proceedings.

I was wrong, by the way, when I said that it must have taken a long time to find somebody who hasn't voted for censorship from the other side of the aisle. You didn't find it. The gentleman from the other side of the aisle actually did vote for censorship on a First Amendment right. I find it rather funny. We just researched it. Unless my sources are wrong, the vast majority of the other side of the aisle actually voted for censorship based on a First Amendment right.

I also wanted to say that my heart goes out to the Palestinian people--it truly does--especially those people who were bombed in the hospital, which my colleague knows wasn't from the Israelis.

Yet the statement is contrary to that, even though our intel was very clear, as was our President, very clear. That is what this debate is about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman), a Marine Corps general.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Miller), a marine.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lawler).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Fallon).

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert this article from 11 Alive News, titled: ``Metro Atlanta woman killed in Jerusalem: reports,'' dated November 6, 2023.

Mr. Speaker, I know there is a lot of passion today. I heard a lot of screaming. I heard a lot of accusations, you could say, on both sides.

I don't really care what race, religion, or gender orientation you are. Where I come from in the Marine Corps, we are all shades of green, and we all bleed red. That is the truth. I just care about the person who has my back.

When I was student body president at Morehouse School of Medicine, I was elected by my peers--60 percent females, 80 percent Black, 95 percent liberal. Why? I was elected because I love people. I love people of all sorts. This isn't about who you are. It is about what you represent, what this body represents. That is what this debate is about.

If this is not worthy of censure, I don't know what it is. Representative Tlaib has stoked anti-Semitism in this Nation and undermined our national security.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this resolution to show the world, especially our adversaries, that the United States stands behind our allies and will not back down to terrorists.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment No. 61 to H.R. 4820, the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2024.

Mr. Chair, my amendment would prohibit funds from this act from implementing President Biden's burdensome and misguided Executive Orders 14037, 14057, and 14096.

Executive Orders 14037 and 14057 set the following goals for the Biden administration's out-of-touch energy policy regulations: 100 percent of the electricity of the U.S. to be carbon pollution free by 2030 on a net annual basis; 100 percent of vehicles purchased by the government to be zero emissions by 2035; and that 50 percent of all new passenger cars and light trucks in the United States be electric vehicles by 2030.

These economically harmful goals represent Democrats' desire for central government planning that is not driven by public demand but by bureaucrats deciding what they think is best for our diverse, vibrant Nation of over 330 million people.

A prime example of Democratic failed policy initiatives is the story of the electric bus manufacturer, Proterra, a company that received extremely high praise from President Biden, as well as other administration officials.

According to President Biden, Proterra was getting us in the game for sustainable transportation. Well, after receiving millions upon millions of dollars in Federal Government funding, on August 7 of this year, Proterra filed for bankruptcy--this is not the first time this thing has happened where a government-subsidized company has gone bankrupt--citing a multitude of reasons, including the 9-figure debt. That does not sound sustainable to me.

Almost 2 years ago, the Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that America should purchase electric vehicles so that they won't have to worry about gas prices again. Instead, they will have to worry about supply-chain disruptions and critical mineral sourcing, not to mention the cost of these vehicles.

Now, I don't know about the average American, but I guarantee you they don't spend an extra $17,000 per year on gas. The average cost of an electric vehicle is over $60,000 and on average costs $17,000 more than a gas vehicle. This does not take into account if the battery goes bad. It will, and it costs about $17,000 to replace that, too, which means people are going to be relying on the government for more subsidies.

These types of statements show just how out of touch the leftwing officials in the Biden administration can be. Switching to electric vehicles, or whatever future technology, must come naturally through free-market forces. Mandating a change is building an entire vehicle market on an expensive house of cards, and it will eventually come crashing down, just like Proterra.

Just as concerning is Executive Order 14096 and its crusade for so- called environmental justice. Mr. Chair, instead of simply declaring what is true and promoting environmental conservation, which most people would agree is a good thing, the Biden administration makes this about cultural Marxism, oppressor versus the oppressed. This is toxic rhetoric.

Instead of tackling economic hardships facing Americans, the fentanyl crisis in our communities, the crisis along the southern border, and multiple crises overseas, the Biden administration is creating a narrative that fits their dark view of American history and executive policy that negatively affects Americans.

Everyone wants clean air, safe water, and access to the outdoors for all. Let's not make this about something it is not.

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

Mr. Chairman, Congress should not allow valuable taxpayer dollars to fund these executive orders that do nothing to help the American people.

Those demanding EV vehicles know the impoverished cannot afford them, which will cause even more dependence on government. That is the built- in harassment package that liberals have created--regulate people into dependence on government so they must vote for bigger government that can never be paid for but will forever be empowered over those who would otherwise be free to live the full measure of the American Dream.

Mr. Chairman, ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of the resolution is as follows:

H. Res. 845 censuring Representative Rashida Tlaib for promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Whereas, Israel has existed on its lands for millennia, and the United States played a critical role in returning Israel to those lands in 1948 immediately following the Holocaust and in recognition of its rights to exist as an indelible signal of our solidarity with the Jewish people;

Whereas, Israel is a critical ally to the American people and to our strategic national security interests in the Middle East;

Whereas, the people of Israel, including American citizens, were brutally attacked on October 7, 2023, by Hamas;

Whereas, Representative Rashida Tlaib, within 24 hours of the October 7 barbaric attack on Jewish citizens in the State of Israel, representing the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, defended the brutal rapes, murders, beheadings, and kidnappings, including of Americans, by Hamas as justified resistance to the apartheid state;

Whereas, Representative Tlaib's October 8 statement claimed that Hamas' October 7 attack on the Jewish people was partly attributable to the United States security aid provided to Israel which ignores the fact that the Iron Dome, a codeveloped air defense system, saved lives that day by intercepting rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israeli civilian targets;

Whereas, on October 18, 2023, Representative Tlaib continued to knowingly spread the false narrative that Israel intentionally bombed the Al Ahli Arab hospital on October 17 after United States intelligence, Israeli intelligence, and President Biden assessed with high confidence that Israel did not cause the explosion;

Whereas, on November 3, 2023, Representative Tlaib published on social media a video containing the phrase ``from the river to the sea'' which is widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the State of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea;

Whereas, Representative Tlaib doubled down on this call to violence by falsely describing ``from the river to the sea'' as ``an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence'' despite it clearly entailing Israel's destruction and the denial of its fundamental right to exist; and

Whereas, Representative Tlaib has repeatedly displayed conduct entirely unbecoming of a Member of the House of Representatives by calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and dangerously promoting false narratives regarding a brutal, large-scale terrorist attack against civilian targets inside the sovereign territory of a major, nonNATO ally while hundreds of Israeli and American hostages remain in terrorist captivity: Now, therefore, be it resolved that Representative Rashida Tlaib be censured.

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

Mr. Chair, I offer amendment No. 39 to H.R. 4821, the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill for 2024.

Amendment No. 39 will reduce funding for the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Programs and Management account by $17 million. My amendment will then reallocate $10 million for increased oversight of the EPA. It will also provide for spending cuts to the EPA of $2 million.

The EPA's role is to protect human health and the environment through research and development. Yet, it seems it is often more focused on burdensome bureaucratic red tape than on the American people and its businesses.

Stringent EPA regulations burden businesses with compliance costs, leading to job losses, higher prices for the customer, and reduced economic competitiveness, particularly in industries such as manufacturing, energy, and agriculture.

For example, in my own district, re-pavement of a key road has been delayed for 18 months at the cost of nearly $750 million. These roads are heavily trafficked and in desperate need of repair.

This delay is due to EPA's requirement of an extensive environmental impact study, even though the road was paved over a decade ago and this is a simple re-pavement project to revitalize the community. This is a ridiculous delay of the inevitable.

The EPA needs to begin prioritizing these communities over the bureaucratic overreach with overbearing regulations.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support amendment No. 39, which would decrease the EPA's overall funding account and reallocate a portion of these funds to increase oversight, transparency, and accountability.

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

Mr. Chair, I reiterate that my amendment reduces funding for the overbearing EPA, increases funding of EPA oversight, and cuts spending by $2 million.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment No. 101 to H.R. 4821, the Interior-Environment appropriations bill for 2024. My amendment reduces the salary of Matthew Tejada, the deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to $1.

As the deputy assistant administrator, he often propagates divisive rhetoric and pushes the Biden administration's disastrous environmental justice initiatives onto American communities.

While in his position, Matthew Tejada has made divisive and inflammatory remarks, attributing the disinvestment in some areas, like East St. Louis, to racism and referred to this as the genocide of communities. This sort of rhetoric is a tool used by the radical left to create a greater divide across the Nation.

Matthew Tejada has even said that he wants to use millions of Federal tax dollars to fix environmental racism. As a conservative, I support protecting the environment. One of my favorite Presidents--as a matter of fact, my favorite President--Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and one of the greatest champions of environmental conservation.

However, I do not support taking a benign policy topic and twisting it into a controversial issue used by the government to further its own political agenda.

This year the EPA received $108 million to go toward funding environmental justice programs and projects, such as the Biden administration's Executive Order 13985, which instructs the EPA to enact an equity action plan.

I am strongly opposed to wasting American taxpayer dollars on issues that will further divide the country. Investing in our communities is important. However, incorporating race into an unrelated issue is simply virtue signaling, which is unhelpful and divisive.

The Biden administration should focus on unifying the country rather than dividing us so that we can combat the real issues our country is facing, like the emergency at the southern border, rising inflation, and the multiple crises happening overseas.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I actually appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. As a former student body president at Morehouse School of Medicine, a minority university, I appreciate the diversity that our country represents. The problem I have is that when we are trying to save the environment, which I have no problem with--I have already stated, my dad was a forest ranger. I have already stated that Teddy Roosevelt was my favorite President--I want to protect the environment. I just don't want to make it an issue about race. I believe we should protect all people, regardless of their skin color. I believe in equal opportunities. I believe that if it is the right thing to do, we do it regardless of what race, what religion, what gender. No matter what the people are, they are Americans, and they deserve the very best from their government. The fact is, we are literally using the government to call the government racist. The very people who are put in charge by President Biden are calling people who are put in charge by the same governmental people racist. It is an inconsistency of thought, and it is divisive.

Therefore, I humbly ask my colleagues to support my amendment to hold Federal bureaucrats accountable, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment No. 102 to H.R. 4821, the Interior-Environment appropriations bill for 2024.

My amendment would prohibit funds from this act from implementing President Biden's burdensome and irresponsible Executive Order Nos. 14037, 14057, and 14096.

Executive Order Nos. 14037 and 14057 are just more examples of the Biden administration's overreach and out-of-touch energy regulations.

The idea that the American people want the consequences of 100 percent of their electricity being carbon pollution-free by 2030, 100 percent of the government vehicles to have zero emissions by 2035, and 50 percent of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States to be electric by 2030 shows just how ignorant this current administration is to the challenges of everyday Americans who are facing these problems.

Everyone needs to pay attention. EV popularity is waning, and it is expensive. Every day, Americans are worried about the skyrocketing costs of groceries and gas prices or whether their next paycheck will cover all their bills, including their electricity bills.

The last thing they are thinking about trying to afford is an electric vehicle that meets the Biden administration's strict standards and, on average, costs $17,000 more than a gas-powered vehicle.

By the way, for a guy who owns a Tesla and who just had to replace a battery, that is another $17,000 on top of that. Your battery will go bad. Anybody who has a cell phone understands that.

These executive orders will hurt low-income Americans most of all. The Biden administration claims to protect those people.

As we look at Executive Order No. 14096, we see a pattern as the Biden administration chooses to focus on programs that divide the American people rather than unite us.

Madam Chair, instead of simply promoting conservation efforts, which most Americans agree are important, this administration continues to use divisive rhetoric behind environmental justice, which does not benefit the poor.

Examples of this divisive rhetoric in the executive order include ``remnants of discrimination continue to persist today''--we are talking about EV vehicles--or that ``communities with environmental justice concerns face entrenched disparities.'' I will tell you that the disparities will be from those who cannot afford these very vehicles that are required.

Our country needs unifying language and leadership. The Biden administration fails that test.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment No. 102 to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are not being spent on frivolous and polarizing initiatives.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I appreciate my colleague pointing out the equity of environment and her concerns for the people. I know myself when I grew up having to supply my own insurance, supply my own gas, supply my own car, which I bought for $1,295 for a 1971 Datsun 510 with 141,000 miles on it, I couldn't afford anything other than that. I couldn't afford any better insurance. My mom didn't have an insurance policy. Can you imagine a 16-year-old nowadays having their own insurance policy not on their parents' plan?

I was in survival mode, which a lot of these people that she is talking about in these communities are in. That is all they can afford--a used gas vehicle to get to their job, to be independent, to live a dignified life where they can sustain themselves, not because they were told by the government, ``You will do this because I am protecting you,'' but they had a choice. They had a choice because we trust people more than we trust government.

Isn't that what this whole argument is about? Do we trust the government to know what is better for our family and our choices, whether it be what we drive, where we work, or what our emissions are? Do we trust the American people no matter what the color of their skin is, or do we trust the American Government to be the moral standard of who we are and what we represent?

Who do you trust? What is equity? Is equity when the government decides everybody will be equal, or when a person had the choice, based on their God-

given right to self-determine, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of their gender, regardless of their religion, that they have the freedom of choice to decide their fate based on their own challenges?

That is what this argument is about. Do we self-determine, or do we let the American Government become our moral standard of what is right and wrong, of what is good for me?

I choose the individual over the government. I believe that is the foundation of our government. I believe that is the foundation of our Constitution. I believe that that is the unalienable right that God gave us.

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