Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding.

My friends on the other side of the aisle are so concerned all the time about civil rights, having the majority for the last few years, they are not interested. They are not interested in what the American people or the little guy has been enduring every day when he comes home from a hard day's work. He watches the TV, and asks: How many more times do I have to say, huh, I told you so?

We just had Social Security numbers of the targets of the so-called J6 investigation released to the public.

Huh, I told you so. No surprise there.

What about the school board association working in collaboration with the White House, working in collaboration with the White House and the Department of Justice to intimidate American citizens.

Thirty miles from here, just a little drive from here, a young lady was raped. A schoolgirl was raped, and her father was concerned about her safety and had the gall to question the school board.

And what does he get?

Persecution and intimidation by his own Federal Government.

I told you so. We all told you so.

People on important committees in this institution lie on national TV over and over and over again with no consequence. They come home and say: Yeah, I told you so. That is not a big surprise here.

The Federal Government is collaborating with Big Tech to silence Americans' voices.

Where are their civil liberties?

The Federal Government is collaborating with Big Tech and the health agencies to silence information that concerns the health of every single American citizen.

Yeah, I told you so.

How many more times?

I ask the minority: How many more times do we have to say ``I told you so'' before you will recognize the overwhelming power and the abuse of power by this Federal Government? Will you ever do anything about it?

Do you know when you want to do something about it?

When you think you have the Presidency in 2024 and you try and regain this House, then you are going to be all into it investigating all your enemies.

That is not what the Federal Government is supposed to be for. It is supposed to protect our civil rights, so we don't serve it but so that it serves us.

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

Madam Speaker, I'm honored to recognize Retired Motor Machinists Mate 1st Class (MM) Richard Everett Martin on this most auspicious occasion of his 100th birthday.

Growing up in the York Area, MM Martin attended William Penn High School, where he took a machinery and cabinet making course, while holding a job at Weaver Piano company. He split his months during his final high school year, between the factory and school, developing his love of machinery and honest labor.

After high school, MM Martin felt a call to serve and use his newfound passion, enlisting in the Navy Reserve in 1942 at the age of 19. Studying at the University of Missouri, as well as traveling to Norfolk and New York City, he completed his training and education to become a Motor Machinist's mate 1st class. He was assigned to the USS LST-325, a landing ship for amphibious assaults.

MM Martin was deployed to North Africa, where he would spend one (1) year training along the coast, before taking part in the invasion of Sicily. After a successful landing, during which MM Martin would receive The Purple Heart, the USS LST-325 was deployed to Great Britain to take part in D-Day, where MM Martin, along with thousands of Allied Soldiers, bravely served.

MM Martin is the last surviving member of the original crew of the USS LST-325. His story stands as a testimony to true courage, bravery, and service. His service to our Nation reflects great credit not just upon himself, but also upon the Navy Reserve, as well as all those who served in World War II. As he continues to stand as an icon of selflessness, I wish him many more years of happiness and health.

Mr. Speaker, I would just ask my colleagues, how many more times do we need to see it, the abuse of power by the Department of Justice?

I am sure, just like I do, you travel your district, you talk to people. Some agree with you; some don't agree with you. You know what not one person has said to me? Agree or disagree, not one person has said to me: You know what we need, Perry, we need more money for the Department of Justice. Not one. I don't know why that is, but maybe it is because of the abuse of power.

I appreciate my colleagues that want to do something with Big Tech. I sure want to do something, too.

In about 3 months, the folks who are destroying this country are not going to be in charge around here, and then we can do something meaningful. We don't have to take the bad to get a couple good things. We can just do the good things and leave the bad things out in 3 more months.

We do a lot of things in good faith around here, Mr. Speaker. We do a lot of things in good faith. I am tired of having those things abused.

People will say: Well, what are you talking about, Perry?

I will give you an example. President Biden used the HEROES Act--the HEROES Act made after 9/11 to support people that were called to duty to go and get their education, but they were called to duty. He used that to forgive the loans of all these people that incurred student debt. It is an abuse.

First of all, it is not forgiveness. It is Marxism, right?

Because you are not forgiven, you are paying for it. It is not forgiveness.

How many more times do we need to see it? In good faith. In good faith.

In 3 months, Mr. Speaker, under new management here, we can get a great bill instead of some mediocre thing where we have got to accept something terrible, $280 million a year, $1\1/2\ billion more for the abuse of power.

Two dozen agents raid a guy's home, a pastor, 7:00 in the morning in Bucks County.

Oh, yeah, DOJ needs more money for that, right?

You know what they could have done?

They could have saved a lot of money. They could have picked up the phone, called the magistrate. The magistrate could have called the pastor and said, You know what, the Federal Government is going to charge you. Show up down here at the office, we need to charge you. And I bet he would have shown up. The guy is not a criminal.

More money for that? No way, Mr. President.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

He is spot on. It is tyranny.

We use euphemisms around this town. We call it loan forgiveness. You took out the loan, and we are going to forgive you paying it back using someone else's money. That is not loan forgiveness. That is socialism.

Socialism is tyranny. Taking it, like you said, from some hardworking individual--maybe they wanted to go to college and didn't have the opportunity. Maybe they didn't have the opportunity because they didn't have the money, maybe because of their family situation. It doesn't matter. Maybe they chose not to go to college. They chose not to buy something they didn't want to pay for.

Now, the President says we are going to use the Heroes Act. This is a fascinating example. I told my colleagues around here who want to keep on helping, we have to establish comity here--comity, not comedy. It is a comedy, unfortunately. But we have to work together.

What will it take for them to understand that every step in good faith that we take is abused by the folks who hate this country and hate us? I hate to use that terminology, but that is where it is.

They use the Heroes Act, enacted after 9/11, for those who were sent, who went to fight, who had to give up some of their time to pay for their student loans, pay for their education, use that to forgive these loans for other people who made the decision but apparently didn't intend to pay. That is the definition of tyranny.

The good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), my friend, mentioned the arrest in Bucks County. I just remind everybody that, today, this place voted on sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Department of Justice, like they don't have enough, right?

The Department of Justice raided this pastor's house--not just a father of seven but a pastor--at 7 o'clock in the morning, beating on the door. When you don't answer fast enough because maybe you are upstairs in bed and it takes you awhile to figure out what is going on and get your clothes on and get down the stairs because you don't want to be standing out on the front lawn in your skivvies in front of the neighborhood--that is what the FBI does. If you don't get there fast enough, they are going to break down your door.

These agents all rush in, arms drawn, pointed at this poor individual. Kids are up on the stairs crying. I don't know how many. Mr. Roy says 25, 24, something. Maybe it was that.

Whatever it was, here is what I know it wasn't. It wasn't a phone call to the magistrate. Understand that the court, the State court, already threw this thing out. This gentleman, this individual, was exercising his First Amendment rights. Somebody made a claim. The State court and the police said there is nothing here. The Federal Government said: Look, you people are all domestic terrorists who disagree. You disagree with us, so now you are domestic terrorists.

Instead of calling the guy up and saying: Look, the Federal Government wants to arrest you for this. You have never had a record. You are nonviolent. You are going to have to show up at the magistrate's office to be arrested, or we can do it the other way. Which way would you like?

Offer the opportunity. The guy is not a convicted drug felon, not a murderer.

He has nothing violent in his record. But they break into the house as a show of force, as a show to make sure everybody else in the country knows if you have a differing opinion, don't you dare say it. Don't you dare.

That is the definition of tyranny. That is exactly the definition of tyranny. What else can it be?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I can't tell my colleague that it is not tyranny. It certainly is.

This is the same OSHA that at some point required reporting of adverse reactions to the so-called vaccine, the jab. In the dark of night, in the middle of the week, when no one was paying attention, that requirement went away. They still tried to make private employers force their employees to take this jab, but they didn't want to know.

They have to report everything else, right? They have to report every single slip and fall, every industrial accident. We want people to be safe. But we never gave them a license to tell us what to do with our own bodies and make those decisions.

For goodness' sake, if they had the temerity to force us to do it, the least they can do is keep records on the adverse effects.

Mr. Speaker, they didn't want to know, did they? They didn't want to know. They don't want you to know their tyranny.

They are not for medical freedom. They are not for education freedom. They are not for economic freedom. They are not for any of our freedoms. That is where we are today.

That is why Chip, the good gentleman from Texas, and I are here this evening, to talk about the tyranny that this place, this room, the body that we serve in, the body that we fought to serve in, the institution that we revered growing up, we are so upset with because this institution, this body, is aiding and abetting this tyranny.

This is the body that is supposed to be ending the tyranny, that is supposed to be fighting the tyranny. Yet, here we are.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Texas for being here and making this plain to all of us.

We are going to talk about the CR some more. It continues the highly inflated funding levels.

We just saw the Fed--I have issues with the Fed; that is a whole separate issue--raise interest rates to try to cool down, like pouring water on the fire, this economy because prices are out of control.

People can't afford their daily lives. They can't afford their electricity, their food, their rent, or their mortgage. They can't afford to send their kids to school.

So, the Fed does its part. What do we do over here? Well, the Fed is trying to pour water on the fire. They want to cool it off. Let's throw some gas on it. $1.5 trillion for this fiscal year continues to fund the things that we have been talking about, another $12.3 billion in Ukraine funding.

We all want to help. What Russia did is bullying, right? A country can bully just like an individual can bully. They are bullying their neighbors. Nobody agrees with that. We all want to help. But this is American taxpayers' money.

While Russia is invading the border of Ukraine, we have an invasion on our southern border. How much are we spending on that?

Look, we are spending a pile of money. But do you know what we are not doing? We are not stopping the invasion. Here, let's spend a bunch of money down where Chip lives, and we put a welcome mat out.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for making the contrast.

Here is what else it is more than: It is actually almost more than Russia's annual military spending. The United States alone, the United States taxpayer alone, is spending more in Ukraine to fight the Russians than Russia's total military budget--not just in Ukraine, their entire military budget.

Yet, the budget that we are spending money on, on our border isn't meant to keep our country safe, our national security interest--it is not just national security. My good friend, the gentleman from Texas, lives right down there. He can tell you horror story after horror story about the unsafe conditions that his constituents, his bosses, have to live under every day because this little book, the Constitution of the United States, says that immigration and the border is the job of the Federal Government.

But what do you do? What do you do when they don't do the job? What do

you do when 53 humans are cooked in a truck in your town? I will tell you. I had lunch at a little diner on my way to Washington, D.C., this week. Good people, hardworking people--you can see the same people probably every day in that diner. I sat down. They are talking about the world's problems, talking about their own problems. They looked at me, complaining, and said: What does it matter? We can't do anything about it.

I said: What do you mean you can't do anything about it? What are you asking me for?

They said: You are in Congress, and you can't do anything about it.

We stand here in this body today knowing all of these problems exist, every single one of them. We can all outline the problems. We all know the challenges our country faces.

Yet, in this body, and in the body across the other side of the building, we just want to keep the clocks wound. We just want the trains to run on time. We don't care about all of this other stuff that is happening out there, as long as everything works here in Washington,

The gentleman is absolutely right. I am looking at what else is in the CR: $3 billion for Operation Allies Welcome.

You know what that is? That is Afghan settlement.

For 20 years, for 20 years this country has bled its treasure of humanity, sending our best and brightest to the front, and, of course, your tax dollars.

What did we do at the end?

We just walked away and gave all that away. We dishonored those who lost their lives, those who came home irreparably damaged, and gave that country $85 billion of premier military hardware, we gave it to hardened terrorists and we gave them a country to operate out of.

You know what you get for that? You know what thanks you get?

Here is what you get: You get $3 billion for Operation Allies Welcome because we still have to bring people from Afghanistan because the people that we brought initially weren't vetted. We don't know who they were. They just got on the airplane, and now they are living in your community.

We pray to God that you are going to be safe. We pray to God that not one of them is a terrorist.

But we already know the answer to that, right?

We are living on borrowed time. We already know because we have seen it.

This is what my friend is talking about with Article I. The Founders gave us the power.

You know what they didn't give us in the body?

It comes from within. A little bit of courage. A little bit of courage.

Right now, we all go out and say we should stop spending money on this and this and this: 87,000 IRS agents, a Department of Justice that is reigning tyranny over our citizens.

You know what we did today?

We just continued to fund them, hundreds of millions of dollars.

To my good friend from Texas, and we are here joined by the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), another great friend, when I walk around my district, I see people that agree with me, that support me, and I see people that don't like me and would never support me. I have conversations with each one of them.

You know what?

Not one of them has said, I can't afford my groceries. My electric bill is sitting on the table because I don't have the money to pay for it yet this month.

Here is what we need, here is how you fix that, Mr. Perry. Hire 87,000 more IRS agents. Give $250 million to the Department of Justice. That is going to fix my problems. Not one of my constituents has said that to me.

How about you, Mr. Roy?

That is exactly right.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana.

One of the other things that is in this continuing resolution: $1 billion for increased home heating and cooling cost subsidies. Think about that, for subsidies.

At the very same moment, the administration, through its policies, is driving your energy costs--electricity, gasoline, diesel--through the roof. They are making you pay more and then they are taking more of your tax dollars to give it out to people who can't afford to pay for it.

And people in this body support this? Somehow with a straight face.

You think that this is right?

I will give you a statistic: The U.S. imports about 20\1/2\ million barrels a day. A tanker ship takes about 190,000 barrels. That is about 50 ships a day. The trip from Saudi to New York is about 6,500 miles.

Looking at the burn rate, we are burning about 1 million gallons one way--1 million gallons one way. And this administration would rather do that, tankers from Saudi Arabia, tankers from Venezuela, my goodness, probably tankers from Iran. But heaven forbid, heaven forbid we open the pipeline, any pipeline. They will close as many as they can because somehow they feel good about that.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Roy is absolutely right. Before I turn it over to the gentleman from Texas, I want to prime the pump here a little bit.

The Department of Energy was created for one sole purpose, one purpose and one purpose only: To make the United States energy independent.

My good friend from the State of Texas just went through the list. We were energy independent about 1\3/4\ years ago. It took that long to not only make us energy dependent, but your bills are going through the roof.

Look, I know that people will say, well, gas prices are actually coming down now.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the President has been unloading that. It was created, set aside for natural disasters.

What is happening right now today?

What has been happening over the last 48 hours in our country with our friends from Florida, right?

They might be able to use some of that, but, of course, it is at the lowest level it has been in the history of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

It wasn't meant for political disasters. It was meant for national security and natural disasters. But yet, this is what is happening.

If you don't like the look of your electricity bill now--now, when the weather is pretty temperate in the United States--just give it about 3 months and see how you are going to like it. You can blame it on one thing, one thing and one thing alone: The left, the Democratic left, the Democratic Party, and those in it that are forcing and imposing this on you.

I yield to the good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), my other friend.

They absolutely are. And like I said, if you are worried about the climate, if you are worried about fossil fuel use, the most important thing to do, the most responsible thing to do is to do it efficiently.

America does it more cleanly and more efficiently than everybody else. And we have pipelines, but we can't use them.

Like I said: One trip. One way, from one tanker. Fifty a day come into the United States. One million gallons burned one way for each tanker. So that is 50 million a day.

Everybody is worried about their cars. Nobody gives a hoot about this; and none of it is necessary. Absolutely zero of it is necessary.

Mr. Speaker, in this CR, in this continuing resolution that we are going to vote on in this House tomorrow--I think--even though we say we want to save our country and our citizens, our bosses from this tyranny, people are going to vote for it anyhow: $2 billion for unaccompanied minors flooding the border while doing nothing to solve the border crisis.

As the good gentleman from Texas said, how much did we spend from the Department of Homeland Security to secure our border annually?

Close to 60; but yet we need another 2 for unaccompanied minors. We don't need the extra 2. You just stop the unaccompanied minors, and you don't need the extra 2.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding, I think that in the last year and three-quarters, the Biden administration has racked up more debt than the entire 8 years of the Obama administration.

We found that unacceptable, but yet here we are. And yet, in this body, on this week, at this time, we are going to vote to just continue like nothing is happening, like that is not happening, like we don't care. We are going to go home and say, if you elect us, all this stuff is going to end. Yet, we have an opportunity in this body to stop it.

All the things that the gentleman from Texas outlined, the things that I outlined:

The Ukraine funding.

The $3 billion for operation allies welcome.

The COVID funding.

Oh, by the way, the President of the United States said the pandemic is over, but we are going to add more COVID funding in here, right? Can't do without that crisis.

Mr. Speaker, all that included, but hardly a whimper out of this town, because it is more important that this town keeps going than the American people get what they asked for, what they elected us for.

Mr. Speaker, this is completely unacceptable. I would agree with my colleague from Texas, if Republicans aren't going to fight now-- understand, not one of us is a Democrat. We don't have any authority or majority in this House of Representatives; no majority by Republicans in the Senate. That is the complete legislature. There is no majority of Republicans in the executive branch. That is President Biden. Those are Democrats.

How, for the love of the Lord, can Republicans be blamed for voting ``no'' on this tyranny?

If Democrats want to continue tyranny, God bless them. They can go explain that to their constituents, to their bosses. But why would Republicans help them? And more importantly, why would Republicans help them when reinforcements are coming right over the horizon. We have an election in 40 days.

As Mr. Higgins said, to pass a continuing resolution, to pass a bill that continues this tyranny into December after there is no accountability, people have lost their elections. There is no accountability to offer them yet another opportunity to continue the tyranny.

Mr. Speaker, how do you explain that to your constituents? How do you explain, Well, I voted for that because it is important that Washington, D.C., and all these programs needed your money, needed the money that you wake up every day and go to work for. They needed it, and you didn't.

Mr. Roy, people in my district pack their lunch at night. They get up early while it is still dark. They kiss their little children that are in their beds asleep while it is still dark, and they leave for work.

They count on us here to make sure that we are faithfully, adequately, appropriately, responsibly spending their hard-earned dollars.

Mr. Higgins, you talked about this the other day in conference. Your paycheck. People work hard for it, and they depend on us. And what do we do with it?

Mr. Roy, give us an example. You got like a thousand of them there. How do we blow it?

Go ahead.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), the other gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), and my good friend, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for the time and for bringing up what we know is wrong, what we clearly know is wrong.

Our finest and the absolute healthiest population, by the way, in the

United States of America is in the military. We are down to less than half a percent of Americans who even serve in uniform. And recruiters, even before the pandemic, were telling us they were concerned about what they were looking forward to because the population really just couldn't meet the recruiting goals because people were either criminals, overweight, or what have you.

So we already have a problem, and then you get this vaccine mandate. It is experimental, and they force the best of the best to leave the service. Meanwhile, we can't defend ourselves. China is on the rise, Madam Speaker, you have got Russia threatening nuclear war, and the President declares the pandemic over while we are kicking our finest people, people who said: Put me on the front line, I will sign the blank check and give everything, including my life, in defense of our country.

And we say, no, thank you. Unless you get this jab and bend the knee--and bend the knee--your service here is not wanted.

How about this: anybody who has served, anybody who has worn the uniform knows that as important as recruiting is, to replace those who are retiring after spending the best years, their most productive years, and their most healthy years of their lives in uniform, the most important thing is retention. It is how you treat the people who are going into battle. We are not interested in retaining anybody, apparently, unless they bend the knee.

So we are going to kick someone out after the American taxpayer has spent a boatload of money training someone.

Madam Speaker, do you know what the cost of training an F-18 pilot is or an AH-64 pilot or the ultimate weapon, the American infantryman? Do you know what the cost of that is, Madam Speaker?

After 18 years of service, the best years of their life, right before they are ready to retire because they won't take the jab, we say that we are not interested in retaining you, even knowing that we can't meet our recruiting goals.

This is a complete dereliction of duty, and it is inviting to the enemies of the United States. This weakness is provocative, and you are seeing it all around the globe. This is all done by the Biden administration and leftwing Democrats who somehow think that the control that comes from the emergency pandemic order is better than securing our Nation. And even under the circumstance where the President himself said the pandemic is over, yet as my good friend from Texas just said, while we stand here at this very moment, while the pandemic is over, we are processing people out of the military at this moment.

Madam Speaker, in Pennsylvania, of course, we stand on top of hundreds and hundreds of years of our natural resources that are abundant and readily available. They are cleaner than any other place on the planet, and we have got an administration that says: Keep it in the ground, don't use it.

Madam Speaker, half of Pennsylvania if you had gone back 20 years ago looked like the 1950s, maybe not half of Pennsylvania, but a good portion of the north central portion of Pennsylvania because there were no jobs. The leftist policies, of course, in Pennsylvania chased all the opportunity away, and families were struggling to hold on to their farms. Then horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing came into favor, and these farms and these communities were saved and brought into the 21st century.

The Obama administration and this administration has come in and said, oh, no. Back to poverty for you. You are not going to be able to afford to heat your home.

And if you are, guess what?

You are going to be making a choice between heating your home this winter and feeding your family, all by design, all on purpose, and all intentional by this administration.

It is unacceptable, and as my good friend from Texas said, we are being

asked in the next few days here, whenever they come up with whatever they come up with, to keep funding this and to keep funding that kind of policy.

Why would we provide one vote for it?

There is not one Republican vote. Quite honestly, not one Democrat should vote for it if they love their country, if they love the people in their communities, and if they care about the people who are suffering and struggling to pay their bills.

Madam Speaker, this is what we have. We are not the executive branch. We don't enforce the laws. But when the executive branch governs against the will of the people--and ladies and gentlemen, what we hear all day around this place is, oh, they are trying to destroy democracy because they have a disagreement, they have a political disagreement, they are trying to destroy democracy.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Republic. Madam Speaker, this is a Republic. And the power of the purse, the power of taking from the people a portion of what they earn and distributing it through the Federal Government through its policies resides right here, right here in this House of Representatives. It is the only thing we have.

We can't arrest people. We can't prosecute people. We can say enough is enough. You are governing against the will of the American people. You are governing against the best interest of your country. We are not going to help. We signed up not to help. You are not going to get our vote.

If you want to do it, you can own it. You can go explain to the American people why they can't afford their bills; why they can't find things on the grocery shelves; and why their police aren't on the streets; and why they are worried about when they step out somebody from some other country who doesn't belong here is going to kill their children or abduct them or rob their store. You can explain it because we are not going to because we are not going to vote to continue this charade, this assault on the American taxpayer and American citizens.

Madam Speaker, what my good friend from Texas who joins me in the Freedom Caucus is alluding to is we are being asked to fund a government for a period of time in which the election will occur. We are going to run out of money here in 9 days, and we are being asked to fund the government, and all things that my good friend from Texas has already outlined, all those atrocities, but not until the rest of the year, just until sometime in December after the election when people have lost their election and there is no accountability.

You know what they are going to do then? They are going to waltz right in here, and say: Oh, you know what? We are running out of money again. We got to do it again. You know what? I don't have to stand for election. So if you think this one is bad, if you think all the things that Mr. Roy has outlined that are in this one, more money for COVID when there is no more pandemic--so says the President of the United States--if you think that is bad, just wait until these folks don't have to stand for election in December.

We are saying, if we are going to fund a package, first of all, it has to fix these things. First of all, it has to fix these things. Second of all, send it into the next term so that the people's voice can be heard after November's election. But that is not going to happen. That is not going to happen.

There is no way--as my good friend from Texas says, not one more penny. Not one more penny to support these failed policies, these policies that go against the people that are governed by this town.

Madam Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for bringing this to light. He is absolutely right. We didn't come here, none of us came here on either side of the aisle, because we thought Washington was perfect. We came here because we know it is broken.

If you know something is broken, why do you keep doing the exact same things that have broken it? Yet, we are being asked, once again, when we come here--well, this is what we always do. We are running out of money. We have to pass this. I remind everybody, we are, what, $32-, $31-, $30-something trillion in debt. They don't even print this money anymore; they just digitally create it.

We don't have the money to do this. Not one more penny to rule against the consent of the govern is what I say.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 440.

Madam Speaker, thank you for recognizing the time. I also thank my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good), for being here with us.

I am going to talk this evening and kind of follow up on my good colleague from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert). Some astounding information, and I know that he offers it on a regular basis, and I wish more people would tune in.

Of course, I wish more people here would hear his message and, more importantly than hearing his message, take some action in that regard.

It is astounding that, in a year and a half, the people who are working, and everybody is that can do it, they have lost a month and a half of wages.

Think about how long you work every year, essentially for free, because

you are still working but you don't get the money because you have to pay your taxes, and that date moves a little back and forth. Sometimes it is in May. Sometimes it is in April. But then add another 2 months. If you add another 2 months onto that that you are working, but you are not being paid, that is astounding.

As I understand it, the average wages under the President for a typical family--and I represent typical families. The average wage of a typical family right now has dropped $450 a month.

Now, that might not seem like a lot of money to people in Washington, D.C., people that invest on Wall Street, people that drive fancy cars and belong to the country club. But where I live, $450 is real. That is groceries. People are trying to pay the bill for daycare so that they can be at work. Of course, the cost for that is going up. People are paying more every single day to drive the vehicle that they are struggling to afford.

I talk to people every single day. Every single day, they tell me: ``I can't pay my bills right now, and I am not sure what to do. I am trying to decide how much to spend on food because I know I have to have enough for gas, and it is not just enough for the end of the week. I am never going to catch up at the rate we are going. I am not going to catch up. What is happening? What are we doing?''

I mean, look at the price of gas. I mean, the President just released another day's worth of supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Mr. Good, you haven't been here very long, but you know the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant for natural disasters or national security events. It is not meant for political crises.

A day's worth of oil sold on the open market, I imagine so that the President can say, ``Look, I am trying to help.'' But it is like the fireman saying, ``Hey, look, I am putting out the fire,'' when the fireman started the fire in the first place.

Nobody says, ``Well, that is great. We are happy you are putting out the fire, but if you hadn't started it in the first place, we wouldn't be in this problem.''

Mr. Good, are you talking to folks like this where you live?

It is an egregious failure. I have to remind everybody that that oil, that strategic reserve, was put in there at rock bottom prices.

We filled it up and paid as little as possible for it, probably the lowest prices in decades, and now it is out there being spent at the highest prices ever.

Not only that, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good), my friend, knows--look, I am from Pennsylvania, we have got a lot of natural resources right under our feet.

Instead of coming to Americans to say, ``Can we produce more?'' he is going to people that hate America--Venezuela, Saudi Arabia--even as much as saying that, even though we have sanctioned Iran's oil with this potential Iran nuclear deal pending, they would go there and ask Iran.

But we are getting too far afield here. Look, people are struggling every single day. This is not due to incompetence. This is not due to negligence. This is a plan. This is on purpose.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Yeah, they are executing the plan. This is by design.

We live in an energy economy. Whether you like it or whether you don't, whether you agree with it or whether you don't, whether we can get to more clean energy at some point in the future than we have now or whether we can't get there as fast as we would like to, we are where we are right now.

Most of us are reliant on the natural resources that are beneath our feet that the Earth provides for us. We have done a great job in America of doing it more cleanly, more professionally, more ethically than any other country on the planet. But yet there is this war on these natural resources and a failure or a refusal to acknowledge that in raising those prices, when the policies raise those prices, they touch every single American citizen, every single one.

So it is not just the gas at the pump, because that is tough enough, but the guy that is driving the truck that brings that stuff, he has got to pay a higher price, and so he has got to charge you a higher price. And the electricity that is generated, that costs more. So every single means of production, every single point along the way raises the price.

How is that manifested? People go to the store, whether it is the grocery store or whether it is a retail outlet--you saw one of the major retail outlets just talked about, just issued their report that their sales are down on regular consumer goods because people can't afford them--people cannot afford to buy them.

People are having to make difficult choices, not because this is just happening, but because this is being imposed on them. It is being imposed on them.

I saw the Fed today increased the rate 75 basis points. Most people say, well, what does that mean to me? That means the value of your dollar, every dollar that you get is worth less, right?

Inflation. People say, well, what does inflation mean? Inflation is taxation. Inflation is the cost of living. Inflation is when you go to the grocery store, if you can find peanut butter on the shelf and you could afford two jars of it for your children last month, you are going to have to pay more this month and maybe you are going to have to cut back on toilet paper that you couldn't get 2 months ago or maybe you are going to have to cut back on baby formula that you can't afford to cut back on because your baby is crying. That is what it means.

The whole way up and down the chain, everybody, the value of every single dollar you earn is worth less, not to mention the fact, as my friend from Arizona mentioned, that you are already working about 1\1/ 2\ months more without pay because of this.

This is what is happening to the American people, and nothing is being done to reverse course to change this. Nothing is being done.

I see my good friend, the gentleman from the great State of Georgia (Mr. Hice) is here. I just wonder if he wants to comment on any of that.

Now, my friend from Georgia, I haven't been to the district that you are privileged and honored to represent. I have been to Mr. Good's, and I can tell you, they are hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding folks. A lot of them live out in the country, don't live in mansions. They are struggling to get by. I suspect you are hearing it in your district.

I suspect you are hearing it from average working citizens who aren't connected to Washington, D.C., don't have some special privileges, struggling to get by at the grocery store. We would love to hear some of those stories because those are real people that we are here trying to advocate for. They sent you here to fight for them.

Go ahead, Mr. Good.

And not to mention selling portions of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. To China. Again, the national security threat.

That is exactly right, it is an adversary. Because they say so. We wish it weren't true, but they say so.

I am reading that 26 million low-income households who had managed to put aside a nest egg over the term of the last Presidency and the last economy before a year ago have had that savings wiped out just trying to keep up with the prices that are now occurring, and we are only 1\1/ 2\ years into this.

You know, we heard in the beginning, well, inflation is transitory, don't worry, it is not going to last. Then we heard, it is only going to be a point, a small interest rate raise here or there to control this inflation.

When are we going to stop believing these lies? This is not transitory. Now, of course, they are saying, well, look, this is not a recession. A recession is two quarters of declining GDP, that is what it has always been described as. Now, since the left is in charge, it means something else.

Here is what it means to families who are struggling. They see no light at the end of the tunnel. They don't know where this ends. They are having a hard time paying their mortgage, their car payments, and trying to figure out if they can afford their insurance payments which the government has really messed up by being involved in--too involved in--healthcare. There is no free market there. There is no price competition there because the government is too involved.

People have to pay their bills. And they didn't have this stress 1\1/ 2\ years ago, but they have got it right now. The worst part is, there is no end in sight. They don't see anything changing, right? They just saw basis points go up again today.

Look, if you are a young couple that is trying to start out--look, maybe you are an older couple and you are trying to downsize and you got preapproved for a loan, then the Fed goes ahead and raises the interest rate, and you start the process all over again because you are not preapproved anymore because your buying power just went down, I don't know, maybe about $100,000, which is significant when you are trying to buy a home and get started or when you are trying to downsize from the home you can't afford now.

Go ahead, Mr. Hice.

Mr. Good, you are right.

Mr. Hice, with all due respect, you live in Georgia, but Mr. Good mentioned heating your home. Now it is the height of summer, right? The dog days of summer are upon us. Right now we are trying to cool our homes, and we are in fear of blackouts across these United States of America in the 21st century. Unnecessary, but a reality. California, Texas, coming across the country, all due to policy.

But what is coming up is going to be devastating. It is going to be devastating to people across the country, especially in the northern portions of it where I live, where Mr. Good lives, and you are going to suffer a portion of it, too, the inability to afford to heat your home because electricity prices are going through the roof as well.

People realize it now, and they see it now as they pay for their air conditioning, and they probably raised the temperature in the home a little bit to try to help defray the costs, but heating your home is different, and being very, very cold in the wintertime, people die from that. People die from that, especially in places where I live where winters can be harsh, and they are much harsher in points further north. That is coming.

When you talk about the rise in the cost of living, inflation, and essentially taxation, when you talk about that with no end in sight-- people are trying right now, they can't pay their bills now. They certainly can't put anything aside to plan for what they know is coming, it is going to be a long, tough winter. It starts getting cold, it starts going below freezing just right here in Washington, D.C., mid-October. It is right around the corner, and it is going to last until the end of March into April and May of next year. It is coming, and right now there is no end in sight. We haven't heard anything from the administration about how people are going to be helped to afford to pay their bills.

You are not going to be able to sit in the car and turn it on and turn the heater on, because you can't afford the gas. You are not going to be able to sit in your home and turn the heat on. That is coming.

I can't imagine that our colleagues don't care. We can't imagine that.

We are not here to fearmonger. We are talking about real-life situations that are occurring. This is not about trying to invoke fear in the people that pay our salary, our bosses, our constituents. But we are here to defend them and to be their voice and to echo in these Halls the things that they tell us, the things that they are enduring every single day, the things that they are having to live through.

When you talk about it happening right now, it is happening right now. My concern, among others, that is happening right now is there is no end in sight. None of these things are fixed overnight. This has been a--I wouldn't say a slow-moving train. It has actually been a fairly quickly moving train for about a year-and-a-half where we have watched the decline of our purchasing power, we have watched the increase of everything that we can't afford, lack of things on the shelf, like peanut butter, basic staples, baby food. We have watched all of that.

These things take time to be resolved. And if they are going to be resolved at any point in the future, we have to get started now; sometime. I don't know when it is going to be. We are here this week, and then we are going to be gone in August. Then everybody is going to come back in September to see how much more money we can spend before the end of the year, right? And nothing on the agenda that I see, nothing so far that we have voted on this week, has done anything to lead us to believe that we are going to address this problem.

So we are frustrated for the people that we have to face every single day who come up to us at the grocery store. We are buying gas, too. We are at our grocery stores. We are at the hardware store. We are at the feed store. We are at the clothing store and retail outlets. They walk up to you and say: What are you doing about it to stop it?

We don't have the executive branch, Mr. Hice. We certainly don't have this branch. The power of the purse belongs in this branch. Look, you don't want to disparage sailors, but they are spending like somebody who doesn't care

about how much money they spend. It is very, very frustrating.

So all we are left with, Mr. Good, my friend from Virginia, is the rhetoric we have to let the people at home know that we think enough of them, and we care enough about what they are dealing with to come in and make sure that it is put on the record for all posterity, for all time, that we recognize what is happening to them. We do not agree with this. If we were in charge here, things wouldn't be happening this way.

With about the minute-and-a-half we have left, I will turn it to Mr. Good. He can close it out or I will.

I think, Mr. Hice, you have characterized it correctly. It doesn't matter whether you live in the country or the city or the suburbs. Doesn't matter what your background is. Everybody is feeling this.

I think that is well put.

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

Madam Speaker, I am honored to recognize Ms. Janine Guido for her tireless, selfless, and relentless commitment to the protection and rescue of animals in and outside of our community.

Janine grew up around avid horse-riders--where her affection and love for animals and all wildlife began. When her family built their 18-acre horse farm in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, she and her sister not only trained the horses, but also gave lessons/taught other children the joys and value of horses. Though horses were her main focus, her heart also led her to rescue myriad stray, injured, and unwanted animals in her free time.

In 2011, after several knee injuries that made it impossible to train/ride horses anymore, Janine turned her focus fulltime to rescuing animals. Using the family's farm as her home base, Janine went on to save numerous

creatures--dogs, horses, goats, and cows, for starters. In the Spring of 2012, she began the process of establishing an official, non-profit Animal Rescue organization named ``Speranza''--the Italian word for ``hope''--which is now known around the world.

Janine is passionate about rescuing and rehabilitating animals-- particularly those deemed ``lost causes.'' She ensures that not only do these special creatures get a second chance at life, but that they truly learn the meaning of friendship, acceptance, trust, and love. Any animal that is, has been, or will be in Janine's care--which in some cases even means at the tragic moment of their last breaths in her arms--will know how much they're loved, cared for, and how much their lives mattered.

Janine's tireless support by her loving family and longtime boyfriend continue to allow her not only to realize her life's work, but to give 100 percent of her time, heart, and soul to this critical mission. She has set the standard not only for the numerous volunteers and good Samaritans who selflessly give of their time and/or treasure to share in this calling, but for all of us to follow.

I am humbled and honored to recognize and commend Ms. Janine Guido and Speranza Animal Rescue of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, on the auspicious occasion of their 10th Anniversary, and dedication to, support, and protection of our creatures great and small. I wish her Godspeed as she continues these spectacular and meaningful adventures.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from the State of Virginia (Mr. Good) for helping host this Special Order and being here in my absence.

Oftentimes, I think that we make this partisan. Republicans are seen or characterized as unempathetic or uncaring in the face of so many tragedies. Of course, it couldn't be further from the truth. We are empathetic. Our hearts break just like everyone else's.

But we recognize that in this imperfect Union that seeks to be more perfect every single day, with every single action, that the right to defend oneself, the right to bear arms, is enshrined in the founding documents, the founding documents that we all take an oath to uphold and defend.

We don't just dismiss that like it doesn't exist. We understand that, unfortunately, there are evil people in the world and that this right exists, given to us by God, outlined in our Constitution, so that we can then defend ourselves from any assailant, from any attacker, because we have the God-given rights of liberty and of life. We have that.

We seek some kind of protection for ourselves that also protects our God-given rights but doesn't allow the criminals to prevail upon us in our homes, in our businesses, and on the streets.

Yet, right now, while Americans are suffering the worst cost of living in 40 years--I know the administration doesn't want to talk about it. Right now, violent crime is up 30 percent, an unprecedented rate, not told to us by Scott Perry or Bob Good or Ralph Norman, but by our FBI, an unprecedented rise in violent crime.

Right now, right down the hall, instead of dealing with the rise in crime; instead of dealing with the fact that DAs, supported by the extreme radical left, are letting criminals out on the street; not dealing with the issue that millions of people are flowing across our border, certainly laced with a certain criminal element with no regard to American laws coming across our border; notwithstanding the fact that some of the people that lead our country at the highest levels bailed out violent criminals and paid for their bail to be on the street to then assault and assail their neighbors, that is all happening right now.

Down the hall, as we speak, our colleagues on the left are trying to reinstitute the assault weapon ban, the assault weapon ban that they know, since 1994, when it was instated then, did absolutely nothing to solve this problem.

Because they don't really care about crime--they don't care at all. We are

seen as unempathetic. Meanwhile, every city, every weekend across the country, is like a war zone. You would actually be safer in a war zone. I know. I have actually been to a couple of them. You would actually be safer in a war zone than downtown Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, or New Orleans.

But they are down the hall working on a solution that doesn't fix anything. It doesn't fix a thing. It takes our rights away and doesn't solve anything.

We are here because we believe that Americans have the right to defend themselves, to be free, and to be safe in their homes. We are here as Freedom Caucus members to say that we do stand with the Constitution. We actually believe in our oath. We think that we can do both. We think that we can defend ourselves and stop most criminals' violent activities.

But there have to be consequences. What you are seeing right now across the country are the consequences of not holding people accountable. That is what you are seeing right now, violent criminals being let out on the street over and over again. The message being sent by this administration and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is it is okay. It is okay to just do that. It is okay to commit any crime you want.

Heck, there was a gentleman in New York minding his store. He was attacked. He defended himself. Unfortunately, the attacker's life was taken. What did the district attorney do? He charged the man who defended himself with murder. That sends a signal to every criminal that it is okay to commit your crimes.

Mr. Speaker, it is not okay. This solution is not going to solve anything except disarming law-abiding citizens, meanwhile knowing that the criminals that are willing to disregard the law and use the weapon to kill somebody are certainly going to disregard the law and maintain that weapon when you tell all law-abiding citizens that they must turn theirs in.

Mr. Speaker, this cannot stand. We are here today to say that no matter what happens down the hall, no matter what vote they bring out of that partisan-led committee to disarm America, we will oppose it with every fiber of our being. We will oppose it.

Even if we lose on this round, in 6 months, when we are in the majority around here, if they were to be successful in imposing this confiscation on American citizens, the confiscation of not only the rights to life but the rights to self-defense, we will reinstate them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good) for carrying the load for us here.

Mr. Faulkner was killed in Philadelphia by Mumia Abu- Jamal, and all they usually ask me about that is: What are we going to do to get that killer out of prison?

Right.

Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Virginia is absolutely right. That is our duty here.

People think that the Federal Government maybe is supposed to provide so many things. I am sure that every one of us has different visitors that come in and ask us what the Federal Government can provide for them.

What this government was set up for by our Founders--and, unfortunately, many of our citizens don't know it--is to provide us with the rights that have been given to us by God and to defend them. That is what we are supposed to be doing here.

Right down the hall, it is not about making sure that we maintain our rights to defend ourselves, to maintain the rights that everybody in that room swore an oath in the Constitution to uphold and defend. They are actually looking to strip the very people that are law-abiding, the very people that would follow the law, would purchase the weapon legally, would file the paperwork and do everything that is required in their States. Those are the people that they wish to disarm.

They are not in there talking about stopping criminals. They are not talking about stopping criminals. They are talking about stopping law- abiding citizens who are trying to defend themselves when somebody breaks into their home at night or their store or prevails upon them on the street when they are out with their children or, heaven forbid, our citizens dare to travel to one of these cities anymore.

I represent a company in my district called Starbucks. Their CEO is closing stores all across the northwest of our country because of safety. People want to go to Starbucks. They can't because it is not going to be there anymore, not because of sales, but because of safety.

If that is not a sign of a sickness--and the CEO of Starbucks, I don't know that he thinks that the answer is an assault weapons ban. Maybe he does. But I haven't heard of the Starbucks being held up by an assault weapon.

Every single week, every single weekend, people are killed in major cities, horrific violence, perpetrated whether it is with a knife or whether it is with a handgun. But it is the people that do it. These are inanimate objects. Great Britain banned handguns a long time ago and is now considering banning knives because knife attacks are on the increase.

Our country has a sickness, and we are sympathetic to it. But taking the tool away doesn't address the sickness. Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so focused on the firearm that they can't even see past the fact that they are disavowing their oath to the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, the right to defend ourselves. Mr. Good and I, our colleagues on this side of the aisle, we haven't voted to defund the police. We support law enforcement.

Even though we support fully law enforcement, here is what we know: When someone breaks into your home and you pick up your phone, it is going to take a certain amount of time, unless law enforcement is sitting out in your driveway. You are going to have to do something about it at that moment.

What our colleagues on the other side of the aisle right now are telling us is: No, you are not going to have any opportunity. You are not going to have any ability to do anything about it.

You can use harsh language. I suppose you can throw the lamp that is on your bed stand in self-defense, but that doesn't stop the assailant's bullets that are coming into your home for who knows what reason.

Mr. Speaker, we deserve--because we have earned the right to defend ourselves. We live in America. We have a Constitution that we live under. It outlines our rights as ordained by the Good Lord above. We cannot have this Congress and man take them away from us.

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

Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from California said, nobody in uniform wants civilian casualties. We work very diligently to make sure that there are not civilian casualties, but this almost assumes that we don't, that we actually don't care about civilian casualties when it couldn't be further from the truth.

Mr. Speaker, what this does is add more bureaucracy and takes the focus off of what servicemembers need to do in very difficult circumstances, when oftentimes the difference between life and death, between the servicemember's own life and those of his or her troops who are following him into combat, it is a moment to make a decision.

Mr. Speaker, at that moment, when lives are on the line, when American lives are on the line, in the face of our enemies, in the face of terrorists, what the gentleman from California would have those servicemembers do is take that moment to figure out if the decision they are making is optimal or not. Or in the case where I watched servicemembers who pulled the trigger, come back, and the first thing they had to do was go to the JAG and explain why they returned fire.

Mr. Speaker, those moments cost American lives. That is what this amendment is going to do, and that is why I adamantly oppose it. I ask my colleagues to oppose it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I think what is most important about this is it has already been said that we are not signatories to this treaty. With all due respect to the gentleman regarding the House didn't follow the Senate, we should do our own thing, I agree with that. But the Senate is the one that ratifies treaties, not the House.

But the bigger issue is that requiring rogue nations who are criminal actors who don't honor their commitments--like North Korea, like Russia, and like China--to not do something on a piece of paper is not going to stop them. They don't honor anything that they sign anyhow, and we would be fools to think that they would. All this does, Mr. Speaker, among other things, all it does is tie America's hands behind its back.

Yes, we do certify currently. But we don't know what the future holds, and we don't know what technology is going to be, and we should not tie America's national defense and national security behind her back for the sake of people and countries that refuse to honor the commitments that they sign. And we certainly shouldn't encumber hardworking, tax-paying citizens and their money to some international organization who does not have the best interests of the United States--the sovereignty of the United States--in mind, some global organization that somehow is going to tell us that because North Korea signed a

treaty, because Russia signed a treaty, and because China signed a treaty that they are not going to violate it.

Mr. Speaker, when they violate it, it might be too late. We don't have time or the luxury of hoping that they will do the right thing.

We absolutely must reject this amendment, and I urge our colleagues to vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3(s) of House Resolution 8, the yeas and nays are ordered.

Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question are postponed. The Chair understands that amendment Nos. 53 and 65 will not be offered.

Amendment No. 79 Offered by Mr. Levin of Michigan

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Speaker, there are a lot of issues with this amendment, not the least of which is that my colleague is the subcommittee chairman on the committee of jurisdiction for this amendment, yet we are not taking it up in that committee because I suppose we don't want the debate.

While we are talking about national security in the National Defense Authorization Act, this amendment adds to the already excessive bureaucracy at the State Department, not at the Pentagon.

It has nothing to do with national security. This is about political ideology and using the National Defense Authorization Act for more bureaucracy, a climate change officer at embassies, consulates, diplomatic missions, et cetera.

It is alleged to provide expertise on climate change in the State Department, and it stipulates that this must be done in an equitable, inclusive, and just manner.

Do you know what is not equitable or just? Sending State Department officials around the globe to tell other countries trying to emerge in their world, in their economies, by adopting ineffective, destabilizing green energy just so that John Kerry can fly around in his private jet and rub elbows with billionaires in Davos.

It is certainly not equitable or just to tell other countries they must transition to electrical systems built on the horrific, forced slave labor and child labor facilitated by the Communist Party of China. That doesn't seem equitable, doesn't seem just, doesn't seem fair.

This amendment also contains the sense of Congress that would affirm climate change as one of the core tenets of foreign policy priorities.

Madam Speaker, we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act. This is not the State and Foreign Ops reauthorization. This doesn't belong here. This has nothing to do with this.

Everybody here knows, or should know, that we face enormous challenges around the globe for a national security policy. But if we want to talk about State and Foreign Ops, we can talk about Sri Lanka.

They have an ESG score of like 99 or something like that. They just overthrew their government because they

can't eat because of these policies, these policies imposed on them by the United States of America in the accolades of this Green New Deal garbage.

Ghana is the same thing, moving up in the world, electrifying their country so everybody could afford electricity in a Third World country. Now it is dark at night in their homes because there is no electricity because of this kind of stuff.

This doesn't belong here, Madam Speaker. Actually, it doesn't belong anywhere, but it certainly doesn't belong as an amendment to this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I would just offer this to my colleague, my friend. I have served in uniform, and I know what the existential threats are.

Madam Speaker, I know, having served long in both the enlisted ranks and the officer ranks, the troubles that national security pose to this Nation.

While you might find woke officers and enlisted members infiltrate the Pentagon to destroy the military with this tripe, I am not one of them. I am not going to fall for it. Neither should anybody here.

We need to focus. Our military, our national defense, needs to focus on real enemies, enemies like China, Iran, terrorism, and potentially Russia, but not in a proxy war in Ukraine. These are real enemies.

Climate change can be handled by other agencies and should be handled by other agencies. DOD and men and women in uniform need to focus on defending our country from our enemies, not this, Mr. Speaker.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment, as has been stated, establishes an office of climate resilience in the White House and a climate resilience equity advisory board, including outside stakeholders, to develop a national climate resilience action plan.

What does ``outside stakeholders'' mean? I mean, to me, what I hear is people who do what a lot of people do in Washington. They grift. They are making money. They are making policy that makes their friends money. That is what that means. The stakeholders should be the American people, outside stakeholders developing a national climate resilience action plan.

Now, quite honestly, this is, again, the National Defense Authorization Act. How this amendment made it to the floor under this bill is, quite honestly, beyond comprehension. It is just another level of Federal bureaucracy in the name of climate that does nothing to improve the readiness of our military or support the warfighter.

That is what we should be discussing this evening. That is what the underlying bill is about, the National Defense Authorization Act. This has nothing to do, again, with supporting the warfighter, nothing to do with increasing readiness.

I remember filling out officer evaluation reports with all kinds of requirements. I had a paragraph I had to fill out on every officer, all kinds of requirements that I had to put a statement in about this or that. It left me about one sentence to talk about their warfighting capability, each officer, about one sentence left in all the space of the requirements that I had to complete that had absolutely nothing to do with the servicemember's ability to do their job in combat. So, here we are going to add some more because we don't have enough of that.

The folks responsible for developing a nationwide resiliency plan would be those with emergency management experience if they were going to do it, but that is not required. Again, we have outside stakeholders.

I mean, it doesn't even belong in this bill, but even if it did, it doesn't get anything right here because we are not going to protect anybody. This is just another bureaucracy for activists on the left to impose these things on United States citizens.

I mean, we have real problems. It would be great if we had a task force in the White House, since apparently the President can't handle it, to deal with the record inflation that we have.

It would be great if we had somebody in the White House, maybe a task force, to deal with fuel prices. I mean, we have our national leaders traveling all around the globe, thousands of miles away, to try to get other countries to pump more oil, refine more oil. We won't do it in the United States of America.

It would be great to have that task force. Maybe that would help national security so we wouldn't have to go fight these foreign wars. But I guess we are going to do this social justice climate fearmongering.

It just creates another activist entity within the Federal Government and fails to protect folks from disasters or actually protect the taxpayers. It will actually undermine resiliency efforts by focusing on socialist ideas that are failing. They are failing in this country right now.

What we are seeing happening in our economy is the result of these types of things. We don't let the market work. We don't want the market. We are going to impose our will on the American people and say, ``You are not going to drive that kind of car, you are not going to use that kind of fuel, you are not going to buy that kind of electricity. We know better than you do. We are Washington, D.C.''

Most of us have no experience in these industries that we are forcing on the American people. It undermines America's prosperity and promotes technologies that enrich our enemies, like China, rather than supporting the military, which is what this bill is supposed to be about.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment reauthorizes the Delaware River Basin Conservation Program for 10 years and increases the Federal cost-share for the projects.

Now, it is the same kind of theme here at the end of the evening. I guess it is late. Looks like it is about quarter after 2. Nobody is supposed to notice that we are talking about the National Defense Authorization Act, but this is about the Delaware River Basin Conservation Program.

I am sure it is important to my good friend and colleague. We served together in the statehouse. But he knows and I know the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee shares jurisdiction over this legislation with our colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee, not on the House Armed Services Committee. This doesn't belong here.

As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I can tell you that this bill has not been considered. This amendment hasn't been considered in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Neither side has taken a look at it, so we don't know the pros and cons.

But we know this: This has nothing to do with protecting the residents of Pennsylvania or the Delaware Bay or the Delaware River from invasion from the Chinese or from the Russians or some kind of amphibious force.

My good friend even talked about the trails, the environment, and the conservation around the area, which is all a great discussion. But we are here to talk about the National Defense Authorization Act. This is not to pass nondefense-related amendments, and it is completely inappropriate, completely unrelated to national defense. It actually undermines our national security by providing resources to the Delaware River Basin Commission that should go to the Pentagon.

As long as we are talking about it, let's be clear here. Unelected bureaucrats at the DRBC have usurped the authority of the Pennsylvania legislature, which my colleague on the other side of the aisle and I served in, and have deprived Pennsylvanians of their property rights by instituting a ban on hydraulic fracturing.

Maybe there is a national security nexus because preventing the responsible development of Pennsylvania's wealth of natural gas has enriched the Putin regime. It has funded its aggression in Ukraine and continued European dependence on Russian gas. That is what it has done.

This bill absolutely has no place in the National Defense Authorization Act. While most of America might be sleeping at 2:15 in the morning, I am not. I am here in opposition to this because it doesn't belong here. It belongs in another committee, in another discussion where we can get into the details of what this would do, what this reauthorization would do.

We are not going to be duped by adding this to the National Defense Authorization Act and continuing the egregious overreach of the unelected activists at the DRBC.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I sure appreciate my good friend and colleague. It is always about people, to my good colleague.

But on this particular evening, and on this bill, it is about national defense. It is about national security. It is not about this. This does not belong here.

We could have a conversation, and we should have a conversation about this, but not here, not now, not tonight, and not on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, no one on that side of the aisle cares more about the lives lost than the people on this side of the aisle. We are as heartbroken as anyone is. We are trying to find a balance between the thing that we have all agreed and swore an oath to uphold and defend, the rights granted by God enshrined in our Constitution and weigh that--and weigh that--with keeping our community safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, our society has a sickness. That is for sure. The laws passed in this House to restrict people from their constitutional, God-given rights that criminals disobey is not going to change that. It is not going to change that.

We can do something great here today. We could. We could do something great in this body, Mr. Speaker, but we are not going to.

We are going to infringe on the rights of the law-abiding who want to defend themselves for the sake of the criminals who refuse to follow the law.