Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, Byron Berline, a genius of bluegrass music, passed away on July 10, 2021, after a lifetime of sharing his amazing talent on the fiddle and mandolin with millions of people worldwide.

Byron was born on July 6, 1944 in the small town of Caldwell in the 4th District of Kansas where he began to play the fiddle at age five.

After serving his country in the U.S. Army, Byron quickly rose to musical fame, winning three national fiddle competitions and becoming a much sought-after recording artist, studio musician, member of the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, and frequent festival favorite. Berline performed with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, John Denver, Willie Nelson, Elton John, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Bill Monroe, and many other notable and international musicians. His talent was also featured on TV and movie soundtracks including Back to the Future Part II and Star Trek, to name a few.

Byron Berline's biggest fans were the thousands of people who attend the annual Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, where Byron was a favorite performer on stage and in the campgrounds. He leaves a legacy of five decades of live and recorded music and joyful memories for all those who were blessed to enjoy his gift of fiddling.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a voice for all Kansans, including those who have yet to be born.

Kansans have long valued life. From our entry into the Union as a free State before the Civil War to the Summer of Mercy in Wichita, the Sunflower State has been a beacon of hope and freedom for those without a voice.

In Congress, we should follow the lead of Kansans and recognize the intrinsic value of human life. Yet, the left continues to push radical and unscientific policies that end the lives of unborn babies.

What is worse, they want to pay for their abortion-on-demand policies with your tax dollars, a provision that has wide, bipartisan opposition. New polling shows that 58 percent of voters and 65 percent of Independents oppose taxpayer-funded abortion.

The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act is a no-brainer. Simply put, we need to save the Hyde amendment. It saved nearly 2.5 million lives.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 18, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, we should be experiencing one of the greatest economic booms in our history as we emerge from COVID, yet prices are climbing, consumer sentiment is plunging, and there are more than nine million open jobs without workers to fill them. That is the most ever.

In my State of Kansas, we have 3.6 jobs available for every job seeker. Subsidizing people not to work and spending without restraint is stalling out this recovery and causing inflation.

In May, core inflation rose at its fastest pace since 1992. That is because Democrats' untargeted spending has acted like kindling for inflation. There is too much money chasing too few goods. Recent surveys show that 70 percent of Americans are concerned that President Biden's spending plans could lead to inflation. But if you have filled up your gas tank recently or entered a grocery store, you know that it is already there.

Instead of working to quickly reopen and prioritize getting America back to work, upon entering office, President Biden took his eyes off the ball and squandered the recovery that President Trump had handed to him. In the first five months of 2021, the current administration has added 500,000 fewer jobs than the last 5 months of 2020. President Biden should be concerned about his economic crisis.

Biden's slow-growth agenda calls for $6 trillion in government spending with $3 trillion in new taxes. That would crush small and midsized companies, resulting in far fewer jobs down the road.

One of the most antigrowth policies in President Biden's agenda is his plan to revert America's business tax rate to one of the worst in the world again at 28 percent, a move that would return us to the old tax code that incentivized jobs to be shipped overseas.

Biden's budget even acknowledges that a real recovery isn't their priority. It only forecasts a meager 2 percent GDP growth by 2023, with it dropping even lower until 2029.

The American people should contrast Biden's tax-and-spend agenda with what Republicans have done and are fighting to do. In 2017, we put the American people first by passing a progrowth tax code while removing massive amounts of government regulation. That created an economic atmosphere that enabled wages to grow for historically disadvantaged workers, brought the unemployment rate down to the lowest in 50 years, and allowed more people to find jobs in America than at any point in our history. The income gap was even shrinking as lower income wages were increasing faster.

We need to get back to that. It is not hard to see the impact that commonsense, progrowth policies can make. Our focus should be on filling available jobs and rebuilding our economy, not to line the pockets of progressive special interest groups with millions in Federal spending, as Biden's agenda would do. It is hard to ignore that, across the country today, the six States with the lowest unemployment rates all have Republican leadership.

Mr. Speaker, President Biden and Speaker Pelosi need to prioritize economic recovery, not unrestrained government spending.

Madam Speaker, I was not present for Roll Call vote No. 167 on Agreeing to the Amendment. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the legacy of a quintessential Kansas lawman, Vern Miller, who passed away at the age of 92. Mr. Miller's career in law enforcement spanned over 50 years with terms as Sedgwick County Sheriff, Sedgwick County District Attorney, and Kansas State Attorney General.

A U.S. army veteran born and raised in Wichita, Mr. Miller's career in law enforcement began in 1948 when he started as a deputy for the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office, eventually serving three terms as Sheriff of Sedgwick County.

While serving as Sheriff, Mr. Miller drove the 155 miles to Oklahoma City University to attend night classes, earning his law degree in 1966. After passing the bar exam, Mr. Miller was elected as Kansas Attorney General in 1970 and again in 1972, winning all 105 counties in the state. As Attorney General, Mr. Miller vigorously enforced the laws of Kansas, focusing on drug rings and illegal gambling cartels throughout the state.

Mr. Miller was a dedicated public servant whose work ethic and devotion to the law and to his fellow Kansans will be deeply missed. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family during this most difficult time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the Republican Study Committee for hosting this Special Order hour.

Today, our Nation's debt is more than $28 trillion. With a number that large, it is hard to really understand how much taxpayer money we are really talking about. Well, $28 trillion is $1 million 28 million times. Or another way to think about it is it is 28 with 12 zeros behind it.

Spending far beyond our means and watching the debt clock grow astronomically higher has real implications for the future of our country and for our citizens. While many out there would like to believe that we can go on spending without some sort of restraint and it doesn't have any consequences, common sense tells us that is not true.

Because of overspending, the debt held by Americans has already eclipsed the size of our economy and will top 200 percent of the GDP by 2051. Every American, adult and child, bears a burden of more than $85,000.

The problem is so stark that our country spends about $800 million per day on interest payments alone. The net interest costs for taxpayers financing this debt will skyrocket from 1.4 percent of GDP, about $300 billion this year, to 8.6 percent of GDP. That would be more than 2\1/2\ times higher than what the U.S. currently spends on defense as a percent of our GDP.

Another way to look at this problem is through the lens of any family budget and take away some zeros.

Let's say in 2020 an individual made $34,000. That same person spent $65,000, meaning they spent $31,000 they didn't have. And they also had a credit card with $280,000 already on it and growing. This would clearly be absurd and unsustainable, yet somehow that is how the Federal Government operates.

Madam Speaker, American families understand that we should tackle the spending problem first and live within our means. This has to be the focus of our body. It is our duty and our responsibility to those we represent.

We have got to tackle the out-of-control spending before it brings down this great Nation. We need to stop mortgaging our grandkids' future just to sustain and spend our lifestyle today.

Madam Speaker, we need to do the hard work now to address our spending, balance the budget, and fiscally secure our Nation for future generations. Our constituents deserve it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Congressman Mike Bost, for hosting this very important Special Order hour.

Today, we are more than a year out from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are also 5 months out from when the first dose of vaccine was administered. Defeating the virus through a safe and effective vaccine has been critical in reopening our country and our schools and getting Americans back to work. But the recent partisan policies of the left discourage work and create an employment gap in the country.

I hear about this regularly in my district in Kansas. Small businesses, who were hit hard by the pandemic, were forced to shut down, had stay-at-home orders, and are now struggling to find workers to get back reopened.

One of those small business owners, Jessie Sterling, shared with me her experience of struggling to have full employment while she raises her young children, something that was much more difficult when the schools were closed.

While her business has seen customers return, many of her employees have not. Unfortunately, most of Jessie's employees opted to stay home and collect expanded unemployment benefits rather than return to the workforce. The additional $300 means that most of the part-time employees are now making more on unemployment than they were making at their job. While Jessie is responsible for the education and care of her children, she now has the additional stress of picking up extra shifts to cover for the employees who aren't coming back.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We need to shift our focus from the early days of the pandemic, when it made sense to expand these unemployment programs, to encouraging a return to work.

Just yesterday, our neighboring State of Missouri opted out of the enhanced unemployment benefits, a move that will help encourage work and a return to normalcy. Today, my colleagues, Congressmen Tracey Mann and Jake LaTurner, called on Kansas Governor Kelly to do the same thing.

Our American spirit is built on resilience, hard work, and ingenuity. We have had many struggles over the past year, but our history has shown us that we will overcome, not through a heavy reliance on a big Federal Government, but a reliance on faith, on families, and our own work ethic. We need to encourage all Americans to pursue these ideals and get our economy back to work.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Wichita State University men's basketball team and their head coach, Isaac Brown, for winning the America Athletic Conference regular-season championship. This is the Shockers' first AAC championship after joining the conference in the 2017-2018 season.

The Shockers ended their regular season with an overall 15-4 record after ranking seventh in the AAC preseason poll. WSU now enters postseason play as the No. 1 seed.

I am so proud of these men who have displayed perseverance on the court during this challenging year, and I know they will continue to make Wichita and Kansas proud.

I wish them the best of luck as they compete this weekend in Texas during the AAC men's basketball tournament. Go Shox.

Madam Speaker, I was not present for Roll Call vote No. 50 on agreeing to the Resolution (H. Res. 179) on H.R. 1 (For the People Act) and H.R. 1280 (George Floyd Justice in Policing Acting). Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, in addition to treating and vaccinating for COVID, our main priority should be getting people back to work. This legislation doesn't do that. It is full of job-killing mandates and liberal special interest

handouts. So it keeps schools closed. Operation Warp Speed was such a great development to get the vaccine rolled out there so we can get the economy going.

But one of the things that this resolution does, it bails out States that help top off their tax revenue for 2020. However, in my State of Kansas, the 2020 revenues are already higher than the 2019 revenues, including in our just completed month of January, 10 percent higher than a year ago.

So the States aren't suffering through the revenue loss because of the ability for people to still continue to grow and work as they can.

But the resolution does raise expenses for Main Street, nearly doubling the Federal minimum wage at a time when thousands of small businesses are already struggling to keep the lights on. This legislation also fails to recognize, as mentioned earlier, that there is nearly $1 trillion left from the previous COVID bills that Congress has already passed.

By the way, these were five bipartisan bills that were passed in 2020 in order to make sure that it addressed all of the issues that we reflect across our country. The Biden administration should instead be focused on families who are hurting the most, targeting, particularly, the more than 8 million people who have lost their jobs due to COVID.

Workers, families, and small businesses don't need more Washington regulations or mandates. They need to have the economy up and running again. Republicans believe we must increase wages and job opportunities for all workers, and we have gotten real results with tax and regulatory reforms, achieving historic surges in jobs and wages.

Unfortunately, this legislation does not build off of that successful playbook, but, instead, shows that the Biden administration is far more interested in advancing a radical leftwing wish list over our common economic policies that will help our Main Street businesses and families.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my friend from New Jersey for yielding and for hosting this special hour.

As Americans, we realize that our government was formed to protect our God-given rights, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, we recently marked the tragic anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, an anniversary that reminds us that nearly 62 million babies never got a chance to see the world.

This anniversary is also a call to action. As elected officials, we must stand for the rights of the unborn and be a voice for the voiceless. Instead of working to protect innocent life, President Biden has neglected this duty by signing executive orders that are neither pro-life nor pro-taxpayer.

He has reversed the Mexico City policy, forcing U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund abortions in foreign countries, a policy that is opposed by 77 percent of Americans, Democrats and Republicans. And he signaled that he will rescind the Title X protect life rule, which restricts funding organizations that consider abortion routine family planning.

I am proud to stand with Americans who believe in the sanctity of life, and I am proud to lead this movement in Congress with our Protecting Individuals with Down Syndrome Act to safeguard babies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome.

Thankfully, more pro-life leaders, activists, and legislators are rising up to defend the unborn across our country. In Kansas, over the last couple of weeks, our State legislature has passed a resolution that puts a Kansas constitutional amendment on the ballot next year to say with certainty that Kansas values both the life of the mothers and the babies.

There is so much more work to be done, and I look forward to representing the many pro-life Kansans in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table H.R. 3401, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment. This bipartisan bill passed the Senate with 84 votes and could be sent to the President's desk for his signature today.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of amendment 38 to Division A of H.R. 3055 regarding a consistent tariff exclusion process under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

According to the International Trade Administration, Section 301 of the Trade Act provides the United States with the authority to enforce trade agreements, resolve trade disputes, and open foreign markets to U.S. goods and services. It is the principal statutory authority under which the United States may impose trade sanctions on foreign countries that either violate trade agreements or engage in other unfair trade practices.

Since entering office, President Trump has used tariffs to help secure trade deals with partners around the world.

While I don't believe tariffs should be a long-term solution for our trade practices and overall economy, they have been successful in the short-term in bringing countries like China to the negotiating table.

Yet as the process to negotiate new trade deals moves forward, we must do everything possible to limit any potential negative impact on businesses and consumers.

Since enacted, exclusions through Section 301 of the Trade Act have allowed qualifying companies to avoid tariffs on necessary goods. This ensures that companies that can only purchase a certain material or good from one country are not punished if that country is subject to a tariff.

While the administration has established an exclusion process for Tranche 1 and 2 goods, it took prodding from Congress for an exclusion process to be established for 301 tariffs on Tranche 3.

That's why today I am proposing amendment 38 to Division A of H.R. 3055 that would

ensure exclusions are evenly applied to all goods under Section 301.

This amendment provides consistency in the application of Section 301 and seeks to support businesses and consumers which rely on goods covered by the section.

It's important to note this amendment does not support tariffs, which as I said should not be a long-term strategy. However, similar to the intent of language that was included in the Explanatory Statement for the FY19 Continuing Resolution we passed in February, this amendment would ensure that there is a consistent exclusion process for any subsequent 301 tariff rounds.

Just last month, the administration increased tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on nearly $200 billion of Tranche 3 Chinese goods, highlighting the need for a consistent exclusion process moving forward.

This amendment achieves that goal and I ask my colleagues to approve it.

Madam Chair, I rise today in support of an amendment to the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Division that seeks to increase support for water reclamation projects.

Millions of people and businesses throughout our country are able to enjoy a stable water supply thanks to this vital infrastructure.

One example is the Equus Beds Aquifer Recharge, Storage and Recovery project in Wichita, Kansas.

Equus Beds provides the main water supply for nearly 500,000 people in Wichita and the surrounding region.

In addition to servicing citizens, it is also vital for businesses and farms throughout the entire area that includes cities such as Wichita, Halstead, Newton, Hutchinson, McPherson, Valley Center and others.

Equus Beds became a key component of Wichita's Integrated Local Water Supply Plan in 1993, when it was determined that the city's water supply would not meet demand by the year 2015.

Thankfully since its implementation, the Equus Beds Aquifer has recharged 2.5 billion gallons of water to continue meeting the region's needs.

Clearly, water reclamation projects like Equus Beds are critical to sustaining the economy and quality of life in Wichita and throughout our country.

Today I urge support for amendment 95 to H.R. 2740 to increase support in the bill for water reclamation projects like the Equus Beds Aquifer.

I ask my colleagues to approve this amendment en bloc.

Madam Speaker, I would like to change my vote for Roll Call vote No. 293 on Agreeing to the Amendment for H.R. 2740, the Bera of California Part B Amendment No. 46 from no to aye.