Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration.

(During the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be considered as read and printed in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the chairman of the Committee on Rules, and ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control the time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss the rules of the House, actually to debate the rules package. Why this is so important is because this lays out the ability for the House to conduct business, for the House to not only conduct business, but for the House to address the problems that the American people across this country face.

Let's just be very clear up front. We saw a lot of debate about this last week. At the heart of all of the discussions last week was very clear, surely from our side, that Washington is broken. Not just is Washington broken, but the way that this House has been running for the last few years has not been designed to address the problems of the people across this country.

In fact, we have seen many of the problems that families are facing across America created by the things that have come out of this Congress signed by President Biden. Why is inflation running away? Because spending is out of control, because bills appear by dark of night, bills that nobody has read that are thousands of pages long, where Members aren't even allowed to give input in committee or on the floor to address problems they know their constituents will face if these bills pass. Yet, the bills are passed because they are written in rooms behind closed doors by a small number of people, not concerned about the consequences that will affect so many millions of people across this Nation.

Mr. Speaker, for a long time, we have been saying this needs to change. In fact, we ran on an agenda to change the way that Washington works, to fix this broken system, to get our country back on track, and we were awarded the majority by the people across this country. Today starts that process of fixing what is broken in Washington so that Washington can finally start working for the people of this country who are struggling.

Let's start with one basic thing: reopening the people's House. For years, the American people were shut out of coming and seeing their government work. In fact, with proxy voting, which, by the way, ends in this rules package, Members of Congress have to show up and work again.

Just look at the bill that passed a few weeks ago, the omnibus spending bill, $1.7 trillion, mostly borrowed from countries like China. You look at all the things that had absolutely nothing to do with the general operations of government that were thrown in that.

Now, you can start looking at it today, but you surely couldn't look it the day of the vote because very few people had an opportunity to read it, over 4,000 pages dumped by dark of night, right before the vote. Yes, a majority of this Congress voted by proxy on that bill. They weren't even here showing up to vote.

You know what? Americans all across the country have to show up to vote. They have to go to their worksite. They can't work remotely. In fact, Congress doesn't work virtually. It is just not set up that way. Yet, that is what we have seen the last 2 years; committees that don't even meet in person. There are some committees that haven't had an in- person hearing for 2 years.

We end that practice in this rules package, where committees actually have to get to work again, not only meeting in person but in some cases going out into the field, going into the real world, places like the border between United States and Mexico, where, yes, despite the President's

claim, there is a crisis at the border. We have been talking about it for a long time. We have been trying to bring legislation, but that legislation has been rejected by a top-down structure.

This rules package changes that so we can finally start bringing bills to the floor to address things like the border crisis, to finally start addressing inflation and runaway spending. If a Member of Congress has an idea and they want to bring an amendment to the floor, for so long they were shut out of that ability. We had a bill that was over $4 trillion in spending and taxes that was brought through multiple committees in Congress, and not one amendment was allowed to be brought forward and passed. In fact, even the majority was told in the committees: Don't allow a single amendment to pass on a bill dealing with trillions of dollars in taxes and spending that is crushing families across America.

Let's make Congress work for families again. Let's empower Members of Congress to be able to represent their constituents. We were all elected by, on average, about 750,000 people. For too long, each of the Members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, were denied the ability in so many different ways because the rules were structured to shut their ability down from representing their districts unless they were in a leadership position. That has to change, and under this rules package, that finally does change.

Let's make this Congress work for the people who sent us here. We are, after all, the people's House. It is about time we start acting like it. Let's pass this rules package, get to work addressing the needs of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this important piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during the 118th Congress, the Speaker, majority leader, and minority leader be authorized to accept resignations and to make appointments authorized by law or by the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during the 118th Congress, all Members be permitted to extend their remarks and to include extraneous material within the permitted limit in that section of the Record entitled ``Extensions of Remarks.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during the first session of the 118th Congress:

(1) on legislative days of Monday or Tuesday when the House convenes pursuant to House Resolution 6, the House shall convene 2 hours earlier than the time otherwise established by the resolution for the purpose of conducting morning-hour debate;

(2) on legislative days of Wednesday or Thursday when the House convenes pursuant to House Resolution 6, the House shall convene 2 hours earlier than the time otherwise established by the resolution for the purpose of conducting morning-hour debate;

(3) when the House convenes pursuant to an order other than House Resolution 6, the House shall convene for the purpose of conducting morning-hour debate only as prescribed by such order;

(4) the time for morning-hour debate shall be allocated equally between the parties and may not continue beyond 10 minutes before the hour appointed for the resumption of the session of the House; and

(5) the form of proceeding for morning-hour debate shall be as follows:

(a) the prayer by the Chaplain, the approval of the Journal, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag shall be postponed until resumption of the session of the House;

(b) initial and subsequent recognitions for debate shall alternate between the parties;

(c) recognition shall be conferred by the Speaker only pursuant to lists submitted by the majority leader and by the minority leader;

(d) no Member may address the House for longer than 5 minutes, except the majority leader, the minority leader, or the minority whip;

(e) no legislative business shall be in order except the filing of privileged reports; and

(f) following morning-hour debate, the Chair shall declare a recess pursuant to clause 12(a) of rule I until the time appointed for the resumption of the session of the House; and

(6) the Speaker may dispense with morning-hour debate upon receipt of a notification described in clause 12(c) of rule I, or upon a change in reconvening pursuant to clause 12(e) of rule I, and notify Members accordingly.

Madam Clerk, I move that the House do now adjourn until noon tomorrow.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber) for yielding and for organizing this tribute to my dear friend, Louie Gohmert.

We will miss you in this Chamber, but I have nothing but great memories of Louie. You expressed so many prayers for me in tough times, but also, the things you would do, and I see on the poster the ribs because that is what I think of when Louie Gohmert would offer to the Members to cook ribs for them at the end of a long night.

We have gotten into a lot of heady debates here. We sometimes spar with each other. At the end of that battle to bring people together and say, you know what, we are going to eat some ribs--and, by the way, they are really, really good. He has never given the recipe.

I think you ought to pass the recipe on, so we can keep that tradition going, if nothing else--we won't enter it into the Congressional Record--just the seasoning and rub you put on it the night before.

But it is one of those things that helps bring Members together because there are a lot of times where it is easy to get on different sides and people are battling on different issues, but to come together at the end of that, and that is something I will always remember because at the end of those long evenings there would be 50 to 100 Members of Congress in those little offices enjoying that camaraderie. It wasn't just the ribs and the Shiner Bock beer you brought, but it is the camaraderie more than anything. That is one thing we need more of. We are going to have disagreements; we always have since the founding of our great Nation. But to be able to come together at the end of each of those disagreements and remember the bond that joins us, that is much more powerful.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend, Louie Gohmert, for his service here to the United States Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the House majority leader the schedule for next week.

But before I yield, I will just say that I know the gentleman from Maryland, the distinguished majority leader, has recently decided that he would not seek election to House Democrat leadership.

I know he will be staying in Congress, but I thank the gentleman for all of his years of service in leadership, which, of course, takes a lot of extra time, in addition to the general duties of being a Member of Congress from Maryland, to help run the institution of Congress. He has served as majority leader, served as whip, served as chair and vice chair of the Democrat Caucus, and served in many different capacities. I recognize and thank the gentleman for that service.

I am sure the Appropriations Committee eagerly anticipates his return there. As I yield, I thank the gentleman for his years of service and leadership.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

As we look toward next week, we will still have continued colloquies, at least one more colloquy. I have enjoyed these as well, and we will have time to talk about that later.

If I could ask about the schedule for next week to the majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, we noticed the Committee on Rules has scheduled a hearing on Monday for the National Defense Authorization Act. We still don't have any text for that bill. Obviously, the NDAA is a very important bill to laying out the priorities for our Nation's defense, and there has always been a lot of negotiation as it is leaving the House, as it goes to the Senate, as it has been in this conference. There are some issues that are well known that have been debated that, hopefully, will get resolved in that bill, but there is also talk that there may be non-related issues.

What I would ask is when will we be able to get text on this bill?

The bill is very important to our Nation's defense, but if Members are going to be asked to vote, maybe early next week on the bill, we surely wouldn't want a situation where they don't even see the text until early next week to then be asked to vote on that bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I just would strongly encourage that as the text gets filed, if it is not some time in the next few hours, that when the gentleman is scheduling the floor vote on that bill, that there is enough time between when it goes to the Committee on Rules, when the text is filed, to when the actual vote happens, so Members have ample time to review the final product.

I yield to the gentleman.

The final question would be on government funding. We are hearing there are negotiations. When we talk to appropriators on our side, they haven't indicated that they have been included in those negotiations.

Do we know where those negotiations are? Are all sides going to be included on a final negotiation on how government would be funded for the remainder of the fiscal year?

I yield.

A broader discussion for another day. Clearly, as we look at next year, we would hope to pass all 12 appropriations bills out of the House, but as the gentleman points out, at some point the Senate is going to have to start moving appropriations bills, too. It can't just be this game of chicken where the clock is going to strike midnight and the Senate waits to start doing their job until it is already the midnight hour as opposed to it would be nice if there was some kind of shot clock they had after we send them a bill where they would actually act on that bill so it is not just an onus on the House to do our job, whether it is a partisan or bipartisan bill, and we have seen both that come out of the House.

At some point, the Senate has also got to do their job in a legislative body where you have a House and a Senate, if we are going to be able to conduct business that is not always waiting until the midnight hour to finally get a resolution on something as important as this. I yield to the gentleman.

I share the gentleman's concerns there. One of the reasons we put the calendar out for next year this early and built time in during those months before the summer so that there is ample time to get all 12 appropriations bills through the House, give the Senate time to do the work well in advance of the deadline, and then at some point the onus has to be on them to do the job they have to do before the midnight hour. I yield to the gentleman.

It is a good suggestion and something we can get back to, hopefully, in the new year, try to make this process work better. I appreciate the suggestion.

Again, we will have this conversation more next week. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for next week.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who is my friend and the majority leader of the House.

As it relates to the continuing resolution that I know the gentleman said may come up, we haven't had any details that have been shown to us on what that might look like in terms of other items in addition to some kind of short-term or even what the duration of a short term would be.

If there are any dates that the majority has already started thinking about that would be included in a continuing

resolution, any extraneous items--there is some other funding that has been thrown about. There has been talk about Senator Manchin, that there may be some agreement that Senator Manchin would have some kind of permitting reform. I am not sure if that would be a part of a continuing resolution or a stand-alone bill.

If the gentleman could provide any clarification on any of those items that we haven't been privy to in conversations, I yield to my friend.

Obviously, we will be staying in touch on that. Hopefully, Ms. Lofgren will have some conversations with Ms. Granger about details because we haven't seen those yet. We surely would like to be more involved in those discussions.

As we are more in the first half of September, obviously, this would all be at the very end of September. Hopefully, we wouldn't wait until the midnight hour. We are all aware of the deadline.

Hopefully, we can get something brought, ideally agreed upon by both sides, which we are nowhere near right now, but at least to have more direct conversations well in advance of the deadline, so we are not here watching the clock strike midnight wondering.

Hopefully, we can start seeing actual language next week so we can either get to a place where we are in agreement or try to resolve those areas of disagreement.

As the gentleman was talking about the calendar and other items that may be coming up, I noticed there were no conversations about any of the legislation that we have been talking about bringing to the floor to address inflation.

We just saw Tuesday, as the President was holding a party at the White House to celebrate inflation, we saw, yet again, more devastating news on the inflation front, to the point where the markets tanked during that party at the White House.

We have a package of bills that would help bring down inflation, bring down energy costs, and help those families who are struggling as we get ready to face another cold winter. There are expectations right now by all the experts that energy costs will go up again because we have limited supply here in the country.

As we identify those bills and yet not see any of them being listed for debate on the House floor, can we try to get some kind of direction on whether this majority will work with us to bring bills to the floor to address these real problems that are hurting families all across the country?

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

Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of different bills the gentleman mentioned. Each one of them, by the way, when you rack them up, adds up to trillions of dollars in new spending. If trillions in Washington spending were going to solve the problem, then we would have no inflation.

Obviously, it has gone the opposite direction, and it is going the opposite direction because of the trillions of dollars in new spending if you go down the line. Obviously, the gentleman went through all of those things, and I would like to respond to a number of them because it just doesn't mesh with the realities of where our economy is today.

If you look at the numbers--and we can talk about other countries-- other countries have passed bad policies that have wrecked their economies. You can see Europe right now finally having a renewed debate on energy policy because they passed some really foolish energy policies that are destroying their energy economies and making them more dependent on Russia, for example, to get their oil and to get their natural gas. They are finally waking up.

A lot of them shut their nuclear plants down, which is safe, sound nuclear energy. They wrecked their economies. They are starting to reverse that. I am glad they are finally waking up and reversing course.

It seems like right here in Washington the failed policies that President Biden has put in place, they want to double down on. When you look at the results of it, that is why we get where we are which is double digit increases in food costs that our families are facing. Electricity costs over 15 percent higher just over the last year, and it is about to get worse because the bill that the President was celebrating at the White House had another increase in taxes on natural gas, which will raise those costs even higher.

Mr. Speaker, I will yield to the gentleman in a moment.

Mr. Speaker, electricity rates are 15.8 percent higher than last year.

In America. This is all in America. Families that we represent are facing the burden of all of these policies that started in Washington that are ultimately ending up taking money out of their pockets.

When you go to the grocery store--if you can afford to get there--if you find the food on the shelves, it is 13\1/2\ percent higher. We have seen the list, whether it is eggs, dairy products, bacon, some of them are 30 percent higher individually, but it adds up to about 13\1/2\ percent more that you are paying at the grocery store.

Mortgage rates. If somebody is trying to become a first-time home buyer, which is part of the American dream, today it is 110 percent higher to get a mortgage than it was a year ago. Most economists, including many Democrat economists, point to the trillions in spending in Washington as the reason for that. Families have figured this out and said: Stop the madness.

Yet, again, at the White House in the most tone-deaf thing I have seen in a while, the President is having a party celebrating a $730 billion increase in taxes and spending at the exact same time that the market is tanking because of the inflation created by all this spending.

To finish it up, transportation costs are 11.3 percent higher. That is what is happening in America.

Again, Europe did a lot of these same bad policies. They figured it out, and

they are starting to reverse course. They just got rid of their Prime Minister in England because of what they did to wreck their energy economy.

We brought bills--as I shared with the gentleman over months--we have brought a number of bills forward that would solve these problems, and not one of them has been scheduled for a vote on the House floor. We want to address this problem. We don't just sit back and go: Well, it is happening in other countries, so let it stay racking up in America. It doesn't need to.

These are all unforced errors that are the result of failed policies, and instead of stopping the failed policies and working with Republicans to turn it around and lower these costs, it seems like there is a desire to just double down and talk about trillions more to spend.

If spending was solving the problems, then we would have none of these problems. The problems have gotten worse with each multi-trillion or multi-hundred-billion-dollar package of legislation that has come out of this body.

At some point, I would hope that the other side would look and recognize and say, okay, forget about Europe and Asia. They need to look in the mirror and say, why did they create some of their problems?

We can do something about these problems. We brought those ideas forward, and every single time we have been told no, which must mean that this is okay. Because this is not okay to us, and there is a way to reverse it.

If just spending more money and having parties at the White House to celebrate that spending while Rome is burning is where we are going to be, I think there is going to be a day of reckoning on that. I don't think the country is comfortable where we are. And when the idea is to just keep spending more money and act like--maybe it is another $5 trillion--what is the number that is going to finally get us out of this mess? If it was trillions, we would be there already.

Maybe, just maybe, we need to look at going the other way. Stop paying people not to work, for example, when everybody is looking for workers. Unfortunately, the IRS is looking for 87,000 more people. And as CBO just confirmed, a lot of that is going to be going after hardworking families, families making under $400,000 a year, even though we were promised on this floor that wouldn't happen.

We brought an amendment to ensure that President Biden's promise would be upheld. We brought an amendment that would say and ensure no American making under $400,000 would see their taxes go up with these 87,000 new IRS agents. The majority rejected that amendment. Literally, the day of the vote, the Congressional Budget Office came out and confirmed that it is over $20 billion in new taxes.

That bill is going to cost families making less than $400,000. Those families are already struggling. They would love to save up and buy a new house. They can't even afford to get to the grocery store to pay 13\1/2\ percent more. If they try to go get a mortgage today, they are going to be paying more than double for that mortgage than they were a year ago.

At some point we have got to stop these failed policies that are causing these problems. Go look at what some of these other countries are doing to finally reverse course because they are, and they need to, but so do we. I would hope that we would bring some of those bills to the House floor because we could start reversing these horrible trends now.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, to clarify, it wasn't me who said that the IRS agents, this new army of 87,000 IRS agents, would be going after people to collect $20 billion more in taxes who were making less than $400,000.

It was the Congressional Budget Office who put in their report the day of the vote that that is exactly what would happen, is that those IRS agents would, in fact, be going after people making less than $400,000, to the tune of $20 billion in new taxes.

We brought an amendment to stop that from happening, to say they can't go after those people making less than $400,000, which is what the President promised. The Congressional Budget Office report was right there, saying $20 billion is what they would pay in new taxes. The majority rejected the amendment. So clearly, the intention was to have those IRS agents go after them.

Again, those weren't my numbers. That was the Congressional Budget Office. If there is a dispute the gentleman has, take it up with them. But they were the ones who came out with that report the day of the vote. Maybe that was why the bill was rushed through. But we pointed that out, and no one disputed that the Congressional Budget Office put those numbers out there.

But the President still kept saying, don't worry. They are not going to go after them, not a dime. But CBO said $20 billion in new taxes those low- and middle-income families will pay. We tried to stop it. The majority rejected it.

Now, to go to the oil and gas comments the gentleman made about President Biden, you would think, listening to your comments, that Joe Biden was John D. Rockefeller, and he is drilling everywhere. Well, let's first----

And I won't say the gentleman did, but as the gentleman talked about all this production and drilling that is going on and all this oil that is coming out, it was Joe Biden who said, as a candidate, ``no more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.''

Then he carried out policies to back that up and stop drilling.

We have pointed out many times, major companies in America that want to increase production, as the gentleman did say, that they are not increasing production. They tried, and they have been rejected on the permits they would need.

You can't just go drill a new hole tomorrow. Every well ultimately depletes. We all know that. That has been going on since man invented the ability to drill for oil in the world. So as oil depletes, you need to get new permits to go into these areas. The Biden administration, over and over again, rejected those new permits.

So there are leases out there. Again, a lease might be like you have a car. You have got a car in your driveway. Well, if you don't have an engine in the car, the car is not functional.

If you have a lease, the lease doesn't do you any good if you can't get the permits to build pipelines. We have talked about the pipeline problems as this administration, over and over again, has blocked new pipelines.

How do you move the oil? How do you get the permit to go and explore for more?

So what the President did--again, if we were just maxed out on drilling here, why did the President get on Air Force One and fly 5,700 miles to Saudi Arabia to beg them to produce more oil? They said no because they don't have the ability over there.

The President called Vladimir Putin and asked him to drill for more oil. Putin said no.

You don't need to ask those countries to produce more oil because we have it here, but there is documented evidence, over and over, where this administration has said no to permits, no to the ability for us to produce more of our own energy.

So what happens? The price goes up. They are talking about, during this winter, the inability for people to have home heating oil. So they are importing it from countries like Russia because they are not allowing more production here, where companies are trying to produce more and being turned down by this administration.

The Secretary--I think it was the Secretary of Energy--when asked, what is your plan to produce more in America, she started laughing. It is not a laughing matter, but that has been the attitude of this administration.

To finish up on the point where the gentleman started talking about all these bills that we voted against, starting with the $1.9 trillion spending bill that this administration came right out of the box with. As the economy was starting to turn around, and people were starting to bring workers back, trying to get workers back, a $1.9 trillion package of bills came forward to pay people, in part, not to work, to stay at home; made it harder for people to get workers back.

But what it also did--and this is something we brought up during the debate--checks were being sent to people.

Well, we pointed out that checks were going to end up going to people in prisons, and we were told that wasn't going to happen. Just like with the 87,000 IRS agents, when CBO debunked that. Don't worry; nobody in prison is going to get checks. Turned out later, the Boston bomber got a check.

Who knows how many billions of dollars went to prisoners to be paid-- taxpayers are already paying for them to be housed, to be fed, to get healthcare. But then they also got checks, actual checks in stimulus money. We had an amendment to stop that from happening.

But ultimately, yes, we voted against those things because we wanted to see our economy back open.

When there was this idea that everybody had to stay home, that wasn't the case when we started last year. In fact, many States started to open again. There were some States that stayed shut down.

By the way, you can see a massive movement around the country, where New York State alone lost about a million people who moved to States like Florida because they didn't want to be shut down anymore when there was a State that was open, following safety protocols, protecting their people, but allowing people to live in freedom again and live their lives.

So people moved out of States, the shut down States like California and New York and moved to States that were open. You can see the numbers, and they are dramatic numbers.

So not every State handled it the same. But the States that opened were

having a lot more success in protecting their people at the same time, but the States that stayed closed had devastating consequences.

Not to mention what we saw with children being shut out of school, the learning that wasn't happening. Those are devastating numbers we are seeing today because this administration changed the science--and that is documented--changed the science over at CDC to cater to the unions who wanted to keep schools shut down. So millions of kids didn't learn at the levels they should have, and those numbers are still showing up today, that those kids were left behind; lost a year or 2 years they will never get back because other kids were in school learning, when the unions wanted to work with the Biden administration to keep schools shut down.

So those are the things that we tried to address. None of those bills were allowed to come to the floor. But that is where we are.

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

Mr. Speaker, if Joe Biden wants to keep producing more energy, we are giving him opportunities, but he says no. He said ``no'' many times, and he campaigned on that. We will continue to push to bring those bills to the floor.

We are going to continue to push to bring bills to the floor to solve a lot of these problems that we have identified, and we have bills to address them. If the majority doesn't want to bring them up, I understand. That is the prerogative of the majority, but we are going to still keep talking about them.

We are going to still keep pushing every opportunity we can to bring down inflation, to lower energy costs, and to address so many of these other problems that people are still facing today.

If that single mom who is working as a waitress two shifts is going to be audited by some new IRS agent who is tasked, under the terms that we saw, with going out and generating that money, if the result of that is that she has to pay more money, it doesn't mean she is cheating on her taxes. If all of a sudden an auditor is coming after you, who knows what kind of pressure they are putting?

But it is 87,000 more IRS agents tasked with going and generating not $20 billion. The $20 billion is just for the people making under $400,000. It is over $250 billion that some of the numbers show that they have to generate, meaning they are going to have to go out and find that from taxpayers.

That doesn't mean every one of those people they audit is a tax cheat. It just means that person is going to now face an audit who otherwise is working two or three shifts to meet the demands of these higher costs that they are facing because of inflation.

We are going to continue fighting for those hardworking families and fighting to lower the burden on this government, take some of that heat off so they can spend more time at home with their family, not working two or three shifts or worrying about the next audit they are going to face from a new IRS agent who is told to go generate more money. Hopefully, we can address that. We will continue to push for that.

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

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to be honest with the American people. It was the administration that used the 87,000 number. If that number should be lower, I would love to hear what that number would be.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland. If the gentleman has a number, please tell me because that is what we heard from the administration.

We will continue to tell the truth about these policies. Clearly, there is a disagreement on many of them, but that is why we have this debate. I look forward to continuing it with the gentleman.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Kentucky (Mr. Guthrie) for yielding.

I rise in strong opposition to this bill that will absolutely increase the deficit. It will absolutely increase inflation, and this bill will absolutely increase energy costs. In fact, they have a multibillion-dollar new tax on energy.

I haven't heard one person in America saying they want to pay more money for gasoline, yet they are putting billions in new taxes on energy, so you will not only be paying more for gasoline, but you will be paying more for utility bills for your household, which are already skyrocketing because of President Biden and Speaker Pelosi's radical, far-left spending they have already done the last year and a half.

But it doesn't end there.

$250 billion in cuts to Medicare drugs--that is right. For seniors, this bill cuts $250 billion out of Medicare drug spending to help people in higher income brackets be eligible for more ObamaCare subsidies, so a massive wealth transfer away from seniors to higher- income people to get subsidies for ObamaCare.

Then let's talk about these 87,000 IRS agents. You think of just about any NFL stadium in America filled completely with new IRS agents. That is right, more than doubling the size of the IRS to go after lower-income people. They love saying on the other side: Don't worry. It is not going to touch them.

There is only one problem: It doesn't stand up to the facts.

There was an amendment in the Senate, right here, very simple, a one- page amendment to protect people making under $400,000 from new audits by the IRS. This amendment was voted down on a party-line vote because they want that army of 87,000 IRS agents going after lower-income people.

In fact, the smoking gun came out this morning. They don't have a full CBO report on this bill. You heard the old adage that you have to pass the bill to find out what is in it. That is what they are doing today. That is why they are rushing this bill through today. It doesn't even have a review from the Congressional Budget Office.

But just a few hours ago, we got this. It was a confirmation that the IRS agents will be getting about $20 billion in new taxes from people making less than $400,000. That is right. The CBO just confirmed it a few hours ago.

President Biden made that promise multiple times: If you make under $400,000, don't worry; your taxes don't go up. This bill breaks President Biden's promise. It is confirmed by the CBO.

There was an amendment to stop it from happening, and every Democrat voted against it. They wouldn't allow us to bring that amendment here on the floor because they are ramming it through because they don't want people to know what is inside of this bill.

$700-plus billion in new taxes--budget gimmicks that say, for the new taxes over 10 years, they are only going to account for 3 years of spending, which means if you account for the full 10 years, it increases the deficit. Of course, during inflation times and this crisis we are facing economically, this bill will increase inflation and gas prices.

Let's reject the bill and go back to the drawing board.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend, the majority leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker, there are a few bills that we have been hearing might come that weren't discussed, and I know the gentleman alluded to the CHIPS Act. I know the Senate still hasn't finalized anything there. We are hearing they may.

There are some other bills we have been hearing might come over. Of course, it seems like we keep hearing talk that something on Build Back Better may come back over on budget reconciliation, whether it is the trillion plus, whether it is something different, whether we would come back in August to deal with that.

I don't know if the gentleman can touch on what he might be hearing from the Senate, and if there would be any plans beyond next week to come back in August where it is currently not scheduled to be a legislative period that we would be in session. I am not sure if the gentleman is willing to share that, but I will yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate especially the concern about that first 2 weeks because as with my family and a lot of families, those first few weeks where the families are still together before everybody goes back to school, you know, a lot of plans are made.

We have a lot of work to do. We also have families, and you don't want to, you know, lose that element of having people be able to spend the time back in their districts and back with their families. If schedules have to change, at least give some lead time. I know Members on both sides appreciate that.

Clearly, a lot of this depends on what the Senate does or doesn't do. For those of us that would prefer the Senate work in a bipartisan way or especially work in a way that focused on addressing and being aware of the inflationary problems in the country, and, of course, we just saw last week, 9.1 percent inflation, 40-year high, a lot of that driven by the spending in Washington.

There is still talk that the Senate is trying to reach some agreement that would lead to a potential large amount of tax increases. A trillion dollars is a number that keeps being thrown around. It seems like trillions of dollars keep getting thrown around to the point where inflation has gotten out of control from the spending.

We all know how much families are paying for so many things: gas prices, when they go to the grocery stores, all the things that they buy, if they can afford to buy them, those things are dramatically higher.

Hopefully, the Senate doesn't keep adding to that inflation by coming up with more ways to spend money that we don't have. We will see.

There is also talk that as part of the ObamaCare subsidies--you know, that is an entirely different conversation--that bill still needs heavy subsidies that are not affordable, but they are talking about drug price controls that would be paired with that.

Again, more a message to our friends on the other side of the Chamber in the Senate, just for situational awareness when countries do price controls, there is a cost in terms of lifesaving drugs that are not available in countries where they have done price controls. When you look at the United States, clearly a leader in innovation--we have seen it with Operation Warp Speed where we were able to get three different vaccines approved in less than a year because we encourage innovation in this country, we don't penalize that innovation.

But there are countries that do try to fix prices. While it might sound populist to do it, the cost for those countries is that many lifesaving drugs are not available in those countries. We all hear about Canada. Canada clearly is a country that fixes prices. France is a country that fixes prices. You can see here, almost half of the drugs that are available in America that save lives are not available in Canada and France.

I know there is a temptation, as they are negotiating over in the Senate, to get into the price-fixing business. I am not sure which lifesaving drugs the Senate would like to remove off the shelves of the United States, but there will be lifesaving drugs removed off the shelves. Let's not do to drug manufacturing and lifesaving innovation in America what they have done to baby formula in America, where you can't even find it on the shelves. You will not be able to find many lifesaving drugs on the shelves in America if they go to price fixing.

I know it is a heated negotiation over there. They haven't come to an agreement. Hopefully, they won't come to an agreement on something that would actually take lifesaving drugs off the shelves in this country.

I would yield to the gentleman.

I know there has been a lot of work by Members on both sides on the CHIPS Act. Mr. McCaul on our side, through the China Task Force, put out a number of recommendations. The CHIPS Act was one of them. Of course, one of the concerns we are seeing, as that bill continues to be negotiated in the Senate, it is not being negotiated more narrowly, it is being loaded up to the point where we are hearing numbers of well over $100 billion in unpaid-for new spending as part of that bill.

As we talk about inflation, any economist will tell you, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, and if we already acknowledge there are too few goods, to put another $100-plus billion, maybe $150 billion--it keeps growing every day--of borrowed money, none of that-- they are not prioritizing existing money. Everything we are hearing is all of it would be completely borrowed money.

Next week, we are hearing the Fed is going to raise interest rates maybe up to another point, and that is without $100-plus billion of additional debt being added on. If the Fed is telling us that the spending is leading to higher interest rates, which makes it harder for low-income families to buy their first home, for people to maybe expand their business where they can hire more people to go and meet the needs of the supply chain, they won't be able

to do that if interest rates keep going up.

And yet, as interest rates are about to go up again next week, the Senate is trying to figure out how to keep adding and adding and adding on top of what is already probably well over $100 billion in borrowed money that they are going to send over here.

I hope that we would keep that in mind as we are also trying to address these other problems like gas prices. I know we have talked about this many times. I shared it with the majority whip last week and would ask the majority leader again. We have identified a number of bills that have strong support that would address the many problems we are hearing that are leading to an inability to produce energy in America.

We saw the President go hat in hand to Saudi Arabia last week. As I and many others predicted, we all knew that they were going to tell the President no, but I also suggested that if the President just saved the 11,000-plus miles on Air Force One and stayed here and called places like Port Fourchon, Louisiana, they would say yes to producing more energy, not in Saudi Arabia where their carbon emissions are much higher, but here in the United States where nobody in the world does it better, does it cleaner, or more efficiently.

That would create more jobs in our country, and it would give more energy security to our country. It would allow us to lower gas prices, not just for us but for our allies around the world. And yet, instead of working with us on these bills, the President chooses to go to foreign countries who have no interest in lowering gas prices, and so we still end up in this situation.

I don't know if there is an opportunity to get any or all of these bills brought up where we could actually come to an agreement on some things that would move the needle and help families in America lower gas prices. Today, we are still over double what the price of gasoline was before President Biden took office.

Wherever the price moves, up or down, when families are paying over $150 to fill up their car, it is taking a huge hit out of low- and middle-income families' budgets, and that is one of the driving factors behind the sluggish economy.

I don't know if the gentleman wants to make an announcement of some of these bills coming to the floor. I would welcome that, and I would yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This debate will continue. It would be great if we were debating these bills next week. I stand to be surprised and happily surprised if the announcement comes out over the weekend that some or all of these bills will be brought to the floor.

I would give the gentleman a prediction that if the House were to take up and pass these bills, we would see a dramatic reduction in the price of gasoline. I will leave that out there for the gentleman to consider as one more reason why these would be good debates to have, where we could talk together in support of good policy.

We are both blessed with good staff that help us identify really good pieces of legislation that we could bring to address these big, big problems that families are facing.

Mr. Speaker, unless the gentleman has anything else, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mrs. McMorris Rodgers, for leading on this issue.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this radical movement by our colleagues on the left to go way further than Roe, under the guise of codifying Roe, to push some of the most extreme packages of pro-abortion legislation that we have seen.

Where would this push us if they got their way? Under this package of bills that the House is taking up today, the United States would end up among just a handful of countries, including China and North Korea, in radical abortion on demand up until birth policy.

Now, there has been a lot of misinformation presented since the Supreme Court made their decision, a decision that I applaud because, Madam Speaker, it is a decision that finally said Roe was a flawed decision and that, in fact, elected leaders should be the ones debating this.

How much can we debate how to protect life? States have been having this debate. Roe didn't end the debate. It started a movement, a movement for almost 50 years. The March for Life. You see young people, tens and hundreds of thousands, coming up to Washington, just praying and marching for the opportunity to protect life. Now, those States and Congress can have that debate about how much more we can do to protect life.

In fact, we brought an amendment because whether it was before the Dobbs decision or even today, a State like New York has such a radical law that a baby can be born alive outside the womb, and they can murder that baby and call it abortion. That is still legal today in States like New York. It should not be. It is murder. If a baby is born alive outside the womb, how in America can that baby be murdered under the guise of abortion? Yet, that is what is allowed.

We had the motion to recommit we brought forward--we will have a vote on that shortly--to say that barbaric act can no longer happen again in America, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Everybody should vote for that. People pro-choice have said they think it is radical that a baby can be born alive outside the womb and still be murdered under the name of abortion.

We will have the opportunity to right that wrong today on the House floor. I hope everybody votes for it. Unfortunately, so far, we haven't gotten any support from my Democratic colleagues.

I will end with this, Madam Speaker: Our Founding Fathers empowered us with three unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first among those is life. Let's do all we can to protect life, not have this radical, extreme agenda pushed forward today.

Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the House majority whip the schedule for next week.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the majority whip of the House.

Madam Speaker, I know this is a conversation I have had for months with the majority leader as we have talked about the concern over high gas prices, and I notice that, on the agenda that was listed, there are no bills that would deal with the high price of gasoline that families are struggling under due to President Biden's many different actions he has taken to shut down American energy.

Of course, as we know, the President today is in Saudi Arabia, begging the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, when we have been asking the President to work with us to open up American energy, which is abundant, available, but, unfortunately, closed for business.

Of course, we know during the campaign, President Biden bragged that he was going to shut down drilling, that he was going to make it hard for the energy companies to produce in America, and he has done that. The problem is it has had devastating impacts on families.

So, we brought forward a number of bills, again, months ago. I have presented some of these to the majority leader. He said he would look at them and consider bringing some of them up. I want to present a few of these to the gentleman from South Carolina to see if we can get consideration of some of these bills next week at a time when we just saw a report with 9.1 percent inflation, the worst numbers in 40 years, in large part driven by the high price of gasoline.

We have bills to alleviate that problem that families are facing.

I will start with H.R. 7285, by Mr. Carl. This is the Unleashing American Energy Act that requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a minimum number of oil and gas lease sales so that we can get back to producing more energy here.

H.R. 7292, by Garret Graves, the Securing American Energy and Investing in Resiliency Act: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to conduct all oil and gas lease sales that, under current law, he is supposed to be doing. The President is not in compliance with existing law on that.

H.R. 7293, the Energy Permitting Certainty Act, by Ms. Herrell: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to process applications for a permit to drill. It doesn't tell the Secretary what determination they have to give, but it gives them a shot clock, just like they give to businesses. When they tell a business that they have to give an answer on something, it is by a certain date. Yet, when the applications are submitted, the agency just ignores it, just doesn't do their job. Let's get an

answer, yes or no. Let's get an answer and back it up with facts. That is what this bill requires.

H.R. 7298, the Promoting Energy Independence and Transparency Act, by Mr. Moore from Utah: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to submit a report on expressions of interest in applications of permits to drill and requires the publication of data on expressions of interest in applications of permits to drill.

H.R. 7304, the Restore Onshore Energy Production Act, by Mr. Rosendale: This requires the Secretary of the Interior to immediately resume onshore oil and gas lease sales. Let us have an opportunity to utilize our natural resources to lower the price of gas.

H.R. 751, the Protecting American Energy Production Act, by Mr. Duncan: This prohibits any declaration of a moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, which, again, has been a threat by this administration on a very efficient, clean source of energy that America could produce but, right now, is being dramatically limited.

Finally, H.R. 1616, the Promoting Interagency Coordination for Review of Natural Gas Pipelines Act, by Mr. Burgess: This provides for Federal and State agency coordination in the approval of certain authorizations under the Natural Gas Act for the critical infrastructure of pipelines to move energy throughout America so we don't have to get it from tankers, from foreign countries, many of them hostile to America.

I would be happy to yield to see if we could get some consideration next week of some of those bills, if not all.

Madam Speaker, if the gentleman is interested in inflicting pain on Putin, then pass these bills. These bills will take away all of Putin's leverage. The only reason Vladimir Putin has any leverage over America and Europe is because President Biden shut down American energy.

Again, each of these bills addresses different components of President Biden's attack on American energy. It has been a very direct assault on American energy on many different fronts. These lay out all of those things.

You can have all the leases in the world, but if the administration won't give permits to actually execute the lease to do seismic, to build pipelines so you can actually move the resource, to drill in new areas while the resource is being depleted in other areas, then you don't have an ability to secure America's future. It results in the President going hat in hand to foreign countries like Saudi Arabia.

I would just point out that I know the President likes talking about carbon emissions a lot. It is a 5,700-mile trek to Saudi Arabia, and I would imagine he is going to come back home. That is more than 11,000 miles on Air Force One. If you notice the picture, there are no solar panels on the wings of Air Force One. It is jet fuel that actually gets it from here to there and back with the President and his staff. You could save all 11,000 miles and the entire carbon footprint of that trip by staying here in America. I recommend going to a place like Port Fourchon in south Louisiana where they produce energy cleaner, cheaper, and with American jobs.

By the way, as States drill, they get revenue sharing. They would actually be able to use that investment to lower prices at the pump and to help American families.

If you think about where the price is today, whether it is $5.20 or $4.80--of course, it continues to go back and forth in a very high range--it is all double, more than double, what it was 2 years ago.

What that means is that people who are filling up are looking at the bottom line. They are looking at the fact that it is costing them over $150 to fill their car today when it cost them maybe $70 2 years ago if they can afford to fill it up all the way.

We are seeing a trend right now where many families can't even get it to full. They might have to go only halfway because they can't afford the full price. Their credit cards get maxed out before then because if they are filling up to go to the grocery store, they are also paying double-digit increases for everything they are buying there because of the spending-induced inflation.

I suggest if we want to send a message to Putin, no better way to do it than to cut him off at the knees in his ability to hold leverage over America and Europe by producing more here in America.

If we produce it in America, cartels can't control the price. Putin can't control the price. We can meet all of our needs and help our allies around the world so that Putin has no leverage over anybody.

The only person giving Putin leverage today is President Biden by allowing all these limitations on American energy production that these bills will remove. These bills will help America get back to energy independence by unleashing all of those different leverages, those different inhibitions, the prohibitions that President Biden has put on our energy.

Again, if he was against all fossil fuels, maybe there would be a consistency in policy, but he is only against American fossil fuels. He will travel 5,700 miles to beg Saudi to produce oil that he won't allow our own producers here in America to produce. I think that is what has Americans irate the most.

I yield to the gentleman.

I appreciate that. Hopefully, as I continue to have these conversations with the leader, maybe you and I could be whipping these bills together. You would see an overwhelming result and a quick reduction

in the price at the pump that is hurting families.

One final question I want to raise to the gentleman, and this came up yesterday or 2 days ago as we were having a series of votes on the National Defense Authorization Act, as the gentleman pointed out. Next week, we will be bringing up some of the appropriations bills, with still more to come over the next few weeks. As we have large numbers of amendments on NDAA and appropriations, which is typical for the process, to be able to go back to 2-minute voting where we can do our business not in 4 hours until 11 at night, but where we can actually be more efficient at processing all the requests that Members have to get a vote on different issues.

We have continued to push to end proxy voting. Again, you have seen most of the country already get there. Most of the country is getting back to work.

Airplanes, finally, you don't have to wear masks anymore. People are traveling internationally again. People are opening up their offices again to get workers in the office.

Congress, frankly, should be leading, not lagging, on this. But if we got rid of proxy voting, we could get back next week to 2-minute votes and be much more effective and efficient in doing our jobs here in Congress.

Is that something that the majority would consider, especially looking at six different appropriations bills, which I am sure will yield hundreds of amendments that would be debated and voted on, on this floor?

I yield to the gentleman.

I appreciate that. I will share--and if the gentleman wanted to share as well with the majority leader--our side stands ready and strongly encourages the complete elimination of proxy voting. We could absolutely get back to 2-minute voting with that. It is not a partisan issue.

You can look across the Capitol, in the United States Senate they have never utilized proxy voting. They continue to do their work. It is, of course, controlled by Democrats over there. They represent the same States that we represent. They managed to do their business without proxy voting so that everybody has to show up to do their job.

This time is no different than any other time in our Nation's history. There are some people who get ill; there are some people who have surgeries; there are some people who just have other things maybe with their family that takes them away. That is something that we all accommodate, we all recognize as a condition of doing a job that actually requires interaction with other people. The Senate has managed to do it without proxy voting; we would just urge that the House embrace that same approach. We will continue to push for that, which would allow us to do things like 2-minute voting.

Unless the gentleman has anything else, I am prepared to yield back.

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

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend and the House majority leader.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the confession about how many 60th birthdays he has shared. Here is to many more for you, but also for Bres.

As the gentleman points out, a fair and free press is vital to democracy. It is the First Amendment to our Constitution: freedom of speech and freedom of the press. While they might not report our press releases verbatim all the time--as we might like them to--they serve a vital purpose. Bres is one of those that we see in the halls, like the press that is around here making sure that the country knows what is happening here in the greatest democracy of the history of the world.

As a 60th birthday gift to him, I promise not to sing ``Happy Birthday'' to him. I wish Bres a happy birthday, and I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that update. As we celebrate Juneteenth next week, also right here in this House Chamber over 150 years ago is where the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was debated and passed. So history is made here on a regular basis. And then we celebrate the freedoms that result and continue as our Founders talked about to aspire towards a more perfect Nation so we will do that next week.

I do want to thank the gentleman because last week during this colloquy I know I asked my friend if we could bring the Supreme Court protection bill, the bill to make sure that Supreme Court Justices and their families get proper protection, as we were watching and saw a man arrested for trying to murder a Supreme Court Justice. Leader McCarthy, I know, urged that as well. So I appreciate that we got to bring that bill up, debate it, and quickly pass it to President Biden's desk where we can get that in place.

I would hope that the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, would start enforcing 18 U.S. Code 1507 to give protection properly as Federal laws dictate, but it is not being enforced at the homes of those Justices. But, again, I appreciate that we got a very overwhelming bipartisan vote on that bill this week.

Does the gentleman have anything to add before we talk about the schedule for next week?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

I share those comments by the gentleman from Maryland.

As we look towards next week--we have had this conversation a number of times--one of the items I don't see on the agenda is an item to address the problem of high gas prices, and, of course, we have now crossed an average of more than $5 a gallon. It is a major burden for families, especially lower-income families who are being forced more and more to make those tough decisions of can they even afford to drive to work, and can they even afford to drive to see their doctor or to drive to the grocery store where they are paying maybe 20 percent more for some of the food items.

We have had a bill for over a month now, H.R. 6858, that would address these problems and allow us to actually have more control over our own energy production in America, to be able to drill in America for energy to lower the cost of gasoline, by confronting so many of the problems that this Biden administration has imposed that are making it hard for us to produce more energy in America to the point where you now have President Biden announcing that he is going to go to Saudi Arabia to beg them to produce more oil.

As we try to confront this challenge--and again, H.R. 6858 would allow us to do that--if you look at President Biden's proposed trip to Saudi Arabia, the President likes talking a lot about carbon footprints, carbon emissions, and global warming.

Why would the President get on Air Force One and fly 5,700 miles to Saudi Arabia to beg them to do something that we can do right here in America?

In fact, he could go less than 1,000 miles to Port Fourchon, Louisiana, in my district where they can produce hundreds of thousands of barrels a day in America which, by the way, because America has the best standards in the world, would emit less carbon than the oil produced in Saudi Arabia.

While the President will be flying over to Saudi Arabia, he won't know the answer he is going to get. They are an OPEC nation. They typically support a limited supply of oil because they want a higher price. So he doesn't know what the answer is going to be. He is going to fly 5,700 miles over and another 5,700 miles back to the United States. There are no solar panels on Air Force One, so that is going to be a lot of jet fuel and a lot of carbon emissions to do something that he could pick up the phone and call Port Fourchon. We would love to see him down there, but he can call them. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, the answer would be ``yes.''

They would say: Yes, we will produce more energy here in America.

But they are not allowed to right now because of limitations put in place by the Biden administration. So while we push to get this bill, H.R. 6858, brought forward, it really begs the question of first: What is the carbon footprint of President Biden's trip to Saudi Arabia?

But why even do this trip? Why go to Saudi Arabia and ask them to produce oil when we have it right here?

It is President Biden's policies that are stopping that oil from being produced, and, by the way, at a much lower carbon footprint than anything that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, or any of those countries would produce if it were their countries meeting the demands of our Nation and so many others.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman, hopefully, to see if we can get the bill scheduled for next week.

Madam Speaker, if there is common ground we can find on the components of H.R. 6858, I would be happy to help facilitate that negotiation because there are a number of very specific items in that bill that address the shortfalls, the deficiencies, the inabilities to produce energy in America. The Keystone pipeline might be one of the more well known.

President Biden, on his first day in office, canceled the Keystone pipeline.

Of course, it is not moving forward because he canceled it. It would provide a vital supply of oil from our friends in Canada that we wouldn't need from other people.

But there are a number of other pipeline issues. No new pipelines have been approved in the country. You have to have an ability to move energy around the country if we are going to be able to produce our own.

If a conscious decision was made in the White House that they don't want any pipelines, because that impedes the ability to produce energy in America, it just means we have to import more of it from other countries. Whether it is Saudi Arabia, Russia, any of them that I would not want us to have to get it from, it is going to come in some form. It might be a tanker. It is going to get here, and it is going to have to be put on rail or an 18-wheeler if it can't be put in a pipeline.

Let's get more pipelines produced, LNG export facilities. There are multiple, at least four, LNG export facilities that are sitting on the desk over at the Department of Energy ready to go. These are multibillion-dollar, privately funded projects that can't move forward because they won't move, yes or no, on those requests that have been pending for over a year.

Obviously, you look at leases, not being able to develop your lease. If you are a farmer and you own land, you could talk about all the thousands of acres of land, but if you need a permit

from the Federal Government to plant food and the Federal Government won't give you a permit to plant the food, then you can't use the land. The land is worthless.

You own leases on Federal or State lands, but the Federal Government, through President Biden, said you can't get permits to go and exercise that lease. Then the lease is worthless.

There has been a lot of talk by the White House about who to blame. By the way, I have never heard of President Biden pointing the finger at himself or looking in the mirror and going, is there something I can do? We have a list for him that he can do, and he won't.

But Joe Biden, as a candidate for President, has said things like this multiple times since being President: ``No more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.'' That was Joe Biden.

Then, Joe Biden continued to carry out policies that followed through on those promises to kill drilling in America, and each step of the way, the price kept going up.

Prior to Putin's invasion--I know the President loves trying to blame Putin. Well in advance of Putin's invasion, the price of oil was going up. In fact, the President was--whatever terminology you want to use-- pleading with, begging, asking Putin to produce more oil prior to the invasion of Ukraine. That was who Joe Biden was asking back then as he was carrying out his promise, ``No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.''

He only applied that, by the way, to America. He was asking other countries to drill. He was just saying you can't do it here. Putin said no, by the way.

In the meantime, Putin was making $700 million a day selling his oil to America and Europe during that period when President Biden was carrying out all the steps to stop drilling in America.

Then you fast forward. The price keeps going up. President Biden, again, doesn't look in the mirror.

The gentleman mentioned they blamed the pandemic. That didn't fly because that wasn't the case because people started getting out again, started going again.

Energy companies asked to start producing again and filed permit after permit application and got denied and denied and denied, so then the President blamed the oil and gas companies. They had hearings up here, brought in all the oil and gas companies.

Do you know what the oil and gas companies said under oath? They want to drill more, and they can't drill because of President Biden's policies. It is President Biden's policies stopping them from drilling.

Again, if the oil and gas companies or Putin were the reason that there was this inability, and President Biden, as he has done multiple times, blamed them, if they were the reason that they had this shortfall, he would continue to be blaming them. But he knew the public wasn't buying it because it wasn't them, so he just blames more people.

Then, he goes to price gouging. As the gentleman pointed out, there was a bill here on the House floor a few weeks ago to try to shift the blame over to price gouging, and the answer was to allow you to sue your local gas station if you didn't like the price of gas.

Well, none of us like the price of gas. Suing your gas station is only going to make the price higher. Obviously, that had no impact because that wasn't the reason. But that was the answer and the attempt to try to blame somebody else.

Then we moved forward, and it is all of these other issues-- refineries. This week, the White House started blaming refineries.

While the White House keeps throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to figure out if somebody else will take the blame, he is going to go to Saudi and ask them to help us lower the price. Saudi's ability to produce is irrelevant to the price if we produce in America because we have the ability to drive down that price because we are not an OPEC nation. We are not a monopoly. We are a free-market economy when the free market is allowed to operate.

But President Biden, through his promises--``No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period''--in essence, he took the free market ability for America to produce energy off the table, which means he gave that leverage to monopolies, to cartels. They are taking advantage of it because President Biden gave them that.

Instead of asking them to produce more when they are fine with the high price of oil, whether it is Brent, West Texas, it doesn't matter what it is. He has taken it off in America so that they can limit the supply.

Let's not limit the supply. Again, if it is about saving the planet, if it is about carbon emissions, why not produce more here? There is no country in the world that produces oil that does it cleaner or better than us.

If you take America off the table, as President Biden has done--``No more drilling on Federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore.'' That was Joe Biden. He took it off the table here. That means you are going to need oil from countries that emit more carbon to produce the same oil, so you get higher carbon emissions.

Again, that doesn't even count the carbon emissions that will occur when President Biden gets on Air Force One and flies over 5,700 miles to go have this conversation that he doesn't need to have because he can have that conversation right here in America at a place like Port Fourchon, where the answer would be yes, and it would be cleaner. And by the way, it would bring billions more dollars into America's Treasury. It would lower the price of gasoline. It would create more jobs in America.

Every answer says yes, except President Biden keeps saying no. We want to address it through this legislation, which would counter some of those many things that President Biden has done to turn off the spigots in America.

If we can work on ways to confront this, I would be more than happy to have that negotiation, and we could go through, offline, how to do that. That is why I continue to bring up this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Just for clarification, the ranking member voted ``no'' on the bill.

The 800,000 leases--and I know we talked about this before. You can have 800,000 leases, but when you need, then, permits to actually utilize the lease--so you have a lease to go and develop oil, but you need to drill. You need to do seismic. You need to build pipelines, infrastructure to move it. If you don't get those permits to actually utilize the leases, the leases are worthless. That is what H.R. 6858 addresses. We have been raising that issue for a long time. The lease is no good if you can't, then, use the lease.

I yield to the gentleman.

Obviously, we will continue to debate this. Hopefully, we will debate it over H.R. 6858 where we can actually be talking about how we work together to solve the problem.

Of course, as the gentleman knows, Congress did come together, Republicans and Democrats, to give our friends in Ukraine the tools to go and push Putin out of much of Ukraine and, hopefully, all of Ukraine.

We will continue to stand with the incredibly strong, resilient people of Ukraine in standing up to Vladimir Putin.

We will, hopefully, have this debate further as we are talking about the legislation that we would like to bring.

Unless the gentleman has anything else--Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to inquire of the House majority leader the schedule for next week.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend and the majority leader of the House.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to ask, specifically, there was some talk that we may today take up the Senate bill, the bill that passed over a month ago in the Senate, to give stronger protections to Supreme Court Justices and their families.

Of course, yesterday, something that angers a lot of us--Justice Kavanaugh, there was an arrest of a man that was at his house, attempting to murder Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. This is something we have expressed concern about for weeks, especially some of the language directed at Supreme Court Justices, people encouraging people to go to their houses.

There was a bill that had bipartisan support that passed the Senate over a month ago to give them stronger protections. We thought that may come up today. I don't hear it on the schedule. Can we get a vote on that bill when we come back early next week on the suspension calendar to get that bill sent to the President's desk to get that in motion quickly?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I hope that we can get that early in the week put on the suspension calendar, in the form the Senate sent over where there is broad agreement on both sides of the aisle, and get that to the President's desk to get those stronger protections in place.

Finally, I would like to ask the gentleman, we have talked about this bill a number of times, H.R. 6858, which is a bill dealing with American energy independence, to open up more areas of our country to American energy production so that we don't have to be reliant on foreign countries, whether it is Russia, Venezuela, Iran or, now, the President is going to go to plead with Saudi to produce more energy when America has more energy that we could be producing that we can't because of current policies by President Biden.

This would open those up. It would allow us to lower gas prices. It would allow relief to families who are struggling because of these energy policies that are hurting our ability to produce in America and making us more dependent on countries that are cartels or monopolies, whether it is OPEC or other countries where they want they want a higher price. They want to limit production.

We want to open up American energy, and that is what that package of legislation would do.

Can we get that bill added to the calendar quickly, hopefully next week, so that we can help get relief to families who are trying to plan a family vacation and can't afford to pay $4.50, $5 a gallon or more for gasoline?

I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, hopefully, we can get that addressed as well so that we can tackle some of these other problems: inflation, high gas prices, border issues that we are trying to bring legislation on.

If the gentleman has nothing else, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the majority leader the schedule for next week.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the House majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, as we look at some of the bills that will be brought up next week, in the price gouging bill, there are a number of concerns with the way it is not really defined in terms of what price gouging would even be. But as we know, the current state of our energy crisis is really because we, through the Biden administration, have shut down energy production in America.

In fact, just the other day, earlier this week, in the midst of dramatically high gas prices, President Biden announced that he is canceling massive oil and gas lease sales. In the Gulf of Mexico, where there are rich reserves of American energy that could be produced, and Alaska, where there are rich reserves of American energy that could be produced, President Biden said no yet again. And this isn't the first time.

In fact, since he became President, on day one, Joe Biden started attacking American energy. He killed not only the Keystone but the ability to produce and make any new pipelines in America to move energy around our country so that we don't have to import it from countries like Russia. President Biden made us dependent on Russian oil. In fact, he was begging Putin to send us more oil while he is canceling the ability for us to produce our own energy.

You have seen other steps that the President has taken all throughout his Presidency to make it almost impossible to produce American energy, to move American energy, to export American energy. LNG permits are sitting on the desk waiting to be signed for over a year, not a single new LNG export permit to help not just America lower our energy prices but to help our friends around the world, especially in Europe, not need to get energy from bad actors like Putin.

As Putin is, hopefully, going to be pushed to the side in terms of energy that we get, the President continues to turn not to American energy but to turn to other dictators, to go to Iran, to go to Venezuela, while shutting down American energy.

So, we have a bill, and I brought this up to the majority leader a number of times, H.R. 6858, with over 130 cosponsors, a bill that would actually open up American energy so that we can lower gas prices. We can actually do something about it, not try to point the finger and blame this person.

The President tried blaming Putin. Nobody in the country bought it because they knew gas prices were going up dramatically well before Putin invaded Ukraine. In fact, President Biden, by shutting down American energy, allowed Putin to make $700 million a day selling his oil to America and Europe, $700 million a day leading up to the war to help fund the war against Ukraine because President Biden said no to American energy over and over again. This bill would actually fix that.

Now, when you look at the price gouging bill, first of all, Secretary Granholm, the Secretary of Energy, was asked in a committee hearing recently, just about 2 weeks ago, if there was price gouging. She said: I am not sure anyone is saying there is wholesale gouging.

Now, if you read the bill, what we have seen of it so far, it doesn't allow the FTC to take action against the President of the United States, who actually is responsible for the gouging prices, high prices, whatever you want to define ``gouging'' as.

Again, the bill itself is very vague. If you just don't like a high price, you can go blame somebody else, or we could actually do something about it. We could actually bring a bill, like H.R. 6858, that would actually allow us to open up American energy that is here-- great technology, lowest carbon emissions in the world, by the way, as we are now forced to rely on energy from other countries that actually emit more carbon to produce their oil.

I would yield. Especially if the gentleman would tell me we are bringing this up on the floor, I would be happy to yield right now.

Because America has the best standards in the world.

America knows how to do it better.

By the way, it is American innovation that has opened up the ability to produce more energy cleaner than anyone else in the world, and the President of the United States is the one saying no to America. He is not saying no to all energy. He is saying no to the cleanest American energy. But then he is begging foreign countries, which actually produce energy without American standards, begging them to give us our oil at a much higher price than just doing it here in the best place to do it in the world.

It perplexes me why the President of the United States says no to American energy while begging dictators to give us our energy at a higher cost, but that is where we are.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, to say that Joe Biden is not the reason that supply is limited just doesn't match with the facts. Again, just 2 days ago, Joe Biden, not Putin, not the big oil companies, Joe Biden canceled oil and lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico.

Joe Biden canceled lease sales in Alaska.

Joe Biden, as a candidate--this isn't just some new development for Joe Biden--Joe Biden as a candidate for President of the United States said: ``No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period.''

That was Joe Biden as a candidate, and he didn't stop there.

When he became President, on day one he started an attack on American energy. It is crystal clear why.

Now, I am glad the gentleman is bragging about high production levels, but let's not think for a minute that Joe Biden is the reason we have production today. If you understand the oil and gas industry--I was just on a rig in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico 2 weeks ago, one of the largest-producing rigs in the Gulf. Do you know that rig got its first lease in 2002? It took about 10 years to get the first oil. They put private money--all private money; over $10 billion of private money--into developing those leases. There were many leases and permits along the way to finally get to the point where they could bring oil out of the ground, making money to pay back the $10-plus billion, to ultimately get to a point where they could produce over 130,000 barrels today.

If Joe Biden wants to try to dare take credit for those 130,000 barrels today, he needs to go check the record at how long it took to get that oil from lease, permits, out of the ground, to ultimately getting it into world markets, not American markets. Oil companies don't set the price of oil, it is world markets. That oil ultimately depletes, which is why the oil companies are always looking for new opportunities.

The gentleman talks--as the White House has talked--about thousands of permits that are out there. It sounds really good. Understandably, I think people recognize it is a misleading number because many of these permits are for wells that were tried where there is no oil. There is not oil everywhere.

You buy leases to go explore. It is called ``exploration'' for a reason. If it was known reserves--if you go drill right under a gas tank you find oil. If you want to find oil out amongst the natural resources that leases are issued for, you do test wells, you do seismic engineering. By the way, that takes years to go through the process of permitting.

Since Joe Biden has been President they have not issued new leases for seismic. So you might have a 3-mile by 3-mile lease in the Gulf of Mexico that you paid millions of dollars to the Federal Government for years ago, and you are continuing to try to explore those 3 miles by 3 miles that the Federal Government was happy to take the money for, but you can't even get a permit from the Federal Government today to explore that lease--to exercise other permits.

You have to get permits for the pipelines. Not a single new pipeline permit has been issued. Even if you get it out of the ground, the Biden administration doesn't want you to have the ability to move it through to refineries and world markets.

What you see is a recognition by the rest of the world that America has

taken itself off the shelf in terms of the ability to produce energy. Again, Joe Biden is the one who canceled all these sales. Joe Biden is the one who, as a candidate, said there will be no drilling. Cartels love this policy because they know now they control the supply.

America is producing oil today based on permits and actions that were taken years ago. What we are seeing today is an inability to continue developing these leases, which means ultimately they will dry up, as all of those leases do. That is why you are always exploring for the next round of finds.

Those next rounds of finds are not being explored for in America, they are being explored for in other countries, but it is countries that are cartels, countries that are monopolies, so they can control the price.

It is interesting that the gentleman brought up the last time we saw these kinds of prices was in the 1970s under a similar Democrat President who had the same kind of attitude toward American energy. It made our country dependent on foreign energy and it created lines at the pump where people had to wait days to get gasoline.

When you saw President Trump opening up American energy and allowing a free market to produce energy--we don't put those constraints in place when we are operating under a free market, so the cartels have no leverage, Putin has no leverage. The only reason he has leverage is if you have a President like Joe Biden who says we are not going to produce in America.

He said it. He took the actions to follow up on it, including just a few days ago. Amidst high gas prices, he actually took more American energy off the market, giving the cartels more monopoly power to raise prices. I wish we would address that. We have a bill to address that and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the gentleman commit to bringing those to the floor yet.

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

So I wish my friend would address that. We have a bill to address that and reverse those bad policies. Unfortunately, I haven't heard the gentleman bring it to the floor yet.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

We will continue this discussion. I would like to see us bring up the bill that would actually address it. We will see this debate go on next week and beyond.

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