Floor Statements

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

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment is quite simple. It expresses the sense of Congress that the Department of Education and the Secretary of Education should no longer have any authority to administer any program related to elementary or secondary education in the United States.

Some people may confuse the purpose of my amendment, and let me be clear: It is to strengthen public education in the United States.

I am a product of public education, K-12. I attended public schools, as did my wife and all of our children.

We are proud of our schools in this country, but it is time to turn in the grade card for the Department of Education. They have been at it for 40 years, and they get an F. Education has not improved, but spending has doubled per pupil.

It is time to return the power back to the States, back to the people, and back to the school boards to allow them to make these decisions locally.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Brecheen).

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

Mr. Chair, as my colleague from Oklahoma pointed out, Congress lacks the constitutional authority to create what amounts to a national school board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.

How many are there; 4,000 bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?

My colleague on the other side of the aisle said that basically every school would like to have more money.

How could we do that without raising taxes?

Quit wasting it in Washington, D.C., on 4,000 bureaucrats who cost us about $100,000 apiece.

These bureaucrats make more than the teachers. Yet, they don't teach a single class. They don't write books. They don't help with that.

In fact, the Federal Government is responsible for about 90 percent of the red tape that local schools have to deal with and only about 10 percent of the funding. It is time to change that equation.

Imagine if we could hire 4,000 more teachers in this country using that money and pay them each $100,000, pay them what the bureaucrats get in Washington, D.C.

How many more kids would get a better education?

I suspect a lot more kids would get a better education.

This was a reelection ploy that was foisted on America by Jimmy Carter and Congress at the time in 1979. It did not work. He did not get reelected. It was not a good idea, but here we are. We are stuck with it.

It is time, as I said before, to reevaluate this.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment to show that we support public education. We support the rights of parents to determine through their school boards the rights of teachers. The teachers know what to teach and how to teach. They don't need the Federal Government telling them.

What your child learns or how your child learns shouldn't be dependent on who won the Presidential election and who became Secretary of Education. It is too important to leave it up to that. You need to leave it up to your community, to the teachers and the parents.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at any time to consider H. Con. Res. 21 in the House if called up by the chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or his designee; that the concurrent resolution be considered as read; that the previous question be considered as ordered on the concurrent resolution to adoption without intervening motion except for 1 hour of debate equally divided among and controlled by Representative McCaul of Texas, Representative Meeks of New York, and Representative Gaetz of Florida or their respective designees; and that the provisions of section 7 of the War Powers Resolution, 50 U.S.C. 1546, shall not apply to H. Con. Res. 20.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 199 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the pending resolution with an amendment that I have placed at the desk.

Madam Speaker, last night, the Rules Committee met and reported House Resolution 199, providing for consideration of three measures: H.R. 140, H.J. Res. 27, and S. 619.

The rule provides for H.R. 140 to be considered under a structured rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their designees.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27 under a closed rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of S. 619, under closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Finally, the rule postpones the vote on a potential veto message from the President on H.J. Res. 30 until the legislative day of March 23.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation, H.R. 140, which went through regular order, which was marked up in the Oversight and Reform Committee, where Democrats had copious opportunities to offer amendments and to change the bill, as did Republicans.

H.R. 140 is called the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, and would prohibit Federal employees from using their official authority to censor a private entity, including outside of normal duty hours or away from an employee's normal duty post.

Under President Biden, administration officials and Federal bureaucrats have abused their positions, authority, and influence to encourage censorship and erode Americans' First Amendment rights.

Recently released reports have uncovered efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies to pressure social media companies and internet providers to censor and remove speech posted on social media platforms.

Advocates for this censorship flag certain posts and users as spreading misinformation on various topics, including COVID-19, racial justice, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Executives at Facebook and Twitter have admitted that prior to the 2020 Presidential election, after a warning from the FBI, they censored the sharing of news regarding Hunter Biden's laptop leak, which has since been proven true. It was not a Russian disinformation campaign.

Even former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, during a July 2021 press briefing, called on Facebook to ban specific accounts from its platform.

Congress should recognize that the biggest spreader of misinformation over the last several years, whether it has been about elections or about COVID, has been the Federal Government.

The censorship must stop. Congress must restore constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

H.R. 140, and the amendments that are pending votes here as well, are critical to ensure that government officials can never again promote censorship and pressure private entities to suppress Americans' First Amendment rights.

Additionally, the rule before us provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27, a resolution ``providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of Title 5, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Department of the Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Revised definition of `Waters of the United States.' ''

It is Groundhog Day again in America. Every time the administration changes, this rule changes.

The Biden administration's new rule would radically redefine the term ``Waters of the United States'' to expand the Federal Government's authority in regulating bodies of water.

Specifically, Biden's EPA would expand the term to include impoundments of jurisdictional waters, tributaries, adjacent wetlands, and additional waters.

To be clear, what the Biden administration is pushing through here will heap serious burdens on farmers, small businesses, homebuilders, and rural communities across our country.

In 1972, Congress didn't tell the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers: Do whatever you think is necessary to protect water. That is not what the bill said. Yet, that is what they have taken as their directive.

The Clean Water Act was never intended to be applied as broadly as the

Biden administration is proposing. Every Member of Congress should be concerned about the EPA's attempt to expand its authority over individuals' private property and regulate farms and communities, even those which lie far away from any lakes, rivers, or streams and very far away from Washington, D.C.

Congress has the constitutional authority and responsibility to provide oversight and to review regulations issued by the executive branch. If the executive branch promulgates rules that could overstep their authority, as President Biden is doing here, it is vital that we exercise our oversight authority in Congress.

Finally, the rule before us provides for consideration of S. 619, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which would finally declassify any information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, anyone who spoke out questioning whether COVID-19 might have come from the Wuhan lab in China was denounced as a conspiracy theorist, and their words were labeled as ``dangerous misinformation.'' People were censored online, their accounts were suspended, and their reputations were damaged for questioning the origins of COVID-19.

What is the difference between COVID-19 conspiracy theory and the truth? About 2 years. We have seen them called natural immunity conspiracy theories. We have seen people who said masks don't work called conspiracy theorists. Now, we are finding out that all of those conspiracy theories, so-called, were accurate.

Fast-forward to today. Even the government admits it. The Department of Energy and the FBI have both publicly reported their conclusions that COVID-19 likely emerged as a result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research institute in Wuhan, China, controlled by the People's Republic of China and, ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party.

Was it funded in part by our government? Yes, it was.

This legislation is long overdue and is necessary to expose the truth about the origins of COVID-19. Americans deserve to see the information. President Biden could have released this information at any point. It could have been released a year ago. It could be released today without this resolution. But this resolution is important because the President has not released this information. The last Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi, could have voted to do what we are doing here today. But no, they wanted it to remain hidden from the American public. I fear the Federal Government has been involved in a coverup about the origins of COVID-19 because they are afraid of being exposed as culpable in the creation of the disease at the center of the pandemic.

To my colleague's point about the videos that were released on Monday, I think the other side of the aisle is out of touch and out of step with the American public on this.

A recent poll by Rasmussen showed that 81 percent of likely voters believe that all of the tapes should be released. The Democrats had 2 years to release these tapes. But 81 percent of voters believe that.

Is that just Republicans? No.

Madam Speaker, 86 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats--they are out of step with their own party--believe that these videotapes should be released because Americans deserve to know the truth and the defendants in these trials deserve to have the evidence they need to present their defense.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article in the New York Post titled: ``10 myths told by COVID experts-- and now debunked,'' by Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Madam Speaker, in this article that I have just referenced, misinformation No. 7 was that ``COVID originating from the Wuhan lab is a conspiracy theory.'' It is not. I think we are going to find that out when this resolution passes, and I expect a lot of Democrat support for the resolution. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

``Google admitted to suppressing searches of `lab leak' during the pandemic. Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, claimed, and still does, he didn't believe the virus came from a lab.

``Ultimately, overwhelming circumstantial evidence points to a lab leak origin, the same origin suggested to Dr. Anthony Fauci by two very prominent virologists in a January 2020 meeting he assembled at the beginning of the pandemic. According to documents obtained by Bret Baier of FOX News, they told Fauci and Collins that the virus may have been manipulated and originated in the lab, but then suddenly changed their tune in public comments days after meeting with the NIH officials. The virologists were later awarded nearly $9 million from Fauci's agency.''

Maybe this is why we are not getting the truth yet. We will get the truth if this rule passes and the subsequent S. 619 passes here in the House. I think it is very important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, although it is not the subject of today's resolution or any of the bills covered by this resolution, the Democrats just can't avoid talking about the release of the January 6 videos. They keep going back to it during this debate.

Madam Speaker, I would remind them that 78 percent of Democrats out in America support the release of all of these videos.

The fact that they are apoplectic about the few minutes of video that Tucker Carlson released on Monday shows that Tucker Carlson is over the target. For 2 years, they have been selectively releasing information and videos to set a narrative. In just a few minutes, the entire narrative was challenged--might I say it collapsed under the scrutiny, under the review of just a few minutes of undoctored video that came from this body.

I applaud Tucker Carlson for releasing that. The American people are right. If the Democrats are so upset that only a few of these videos were released, I would remind them that they were able to release these at any point in the past.

Moving on to something that is the subject of this resolution, I want to talk about the repeal of Joe Biden's 2023 WOTUS ruling, the waters of the U.S. ruling. Like I said before, it is ``Groundhog Day'' again.

Under President Bush, we had one set of rules that farmers, homebuilders, and landowners came to understand. They were a little hard to comply with because every division of the Army Corps of Engineers might interpret them differently, or different States would interpret them differently, or different bureaucrats at the EPA would interpret them differently.

Then, Obama came along with a rule to expand the definition of waters of the U.S., and then Trump came into office and the rules changed again. Now, Biden is here trying, once again, to change the rules on what are the waters of the U.S.

The farmers and homebuilders I talk to don't say they don't want any regulations. Nobody in this body has said no regulation is what we want.

The question is, give us clear, precise, understandable regulations we can follow that do not change. Frankly, those should be written by Congress. They shouldn't be made up by every administration that comes into power. Yet, that is what we are doing, or that is what has happened.

Today, we are talking about repealing those onerous changes and unclear changes. For instance, Susan Bodine testified in front of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this year on this topic, and she talked about the significant nexus test that they apply in WOTUS 2023, waters of the U.S. To support expanded jurisdiction under this rule, the agencies now claim that isolated water can affect the biological integrity of navigable water.

What does that mean? If you have a puddle of water that a bird lands in and drinks from and takes some seeds or some larvae, and when it drinks and flies to a river and deposits it in its bird droppings, or maybe as it flies over the river and it doesn't even visit the river, if there is any kind of biological connection--and as we have found, everything is biologically connected on this planet. If there is any biological connection that they can establish between a puddle of water on your property and a navigable water, then they say, this is now covered under waters of the U.S. This is ridiculous.

The only certainty that our farmers and our landowners are going to get from Biden's 2023 WOTUS rule is the certainty that if a raindrop has fallen on your property, a government agent will show up someday and tell you what you can and can't do with that property under this rule.

That is why it is important for us to repeal that, and that is why this resolution is so important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I said that the other side could have released them.

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

Madam Speaker, I surely didn't expect this to turn into a debate on the January 6 videotapes or to hear the Democrats propose that it sounds like they are in favor of all of the tapes being released instead of just some of them.

I think if the gentleman would review the transcript, and I could be wrong, but I think he will find out that I said Tucker Carlson only released a few minutes of that, and those few minutes were able to destroy the narrative that had been constructed over 2 years.

But if the gentleman cares to answer a question, then maybe we have come to some bipartisan agreement that all of the tapes should be released.

Madam Speaker, I would ask if the gentleman when he speaks next if he would speak to that topic and if he would be in favor of releasing all of the tapes instead of releasing them partially.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat serendipitous, but in the context of this debate on a rule about other bills, it seems we have come to some agreement, it appears to me, with the American people, 81 percent of whom believe that all of the tapes should be released. It seems as if we have come to some agreement that we all would be better off if we get to the bottom of the truth and all of the truth comes out and all of the tapes come out so that no one side can distort what actually happened that day, and then let the American people decide.

So in the interest of transparency and in the interest of getting back to the subject matter at hand, which are three bills covered by this rule, I want to talk about S. 619, which is so important. It is transparency, and it is the transparency that the American people deserve. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. Even though it seems like there is some opposition on the other side, I suspect we are going to get a lot of votes from Democrats on S. 619.

I think it is important to go on the record for elected Representatives to say whether or not they believe their constituents are entitled to the truth which our government possesses or at least information that they possess that would help somebody come to a conclusion of what the origins of this virus were and did they come from Wuhan.

The President could do this at any time. He could have done it at any time in the past 2 years. He hasn't done it. It is time to put him on the spot and say: You either veto this or you release that information that you have withheld from the American public for 2 years, which is too long. I suspect we could overcome his veto.

Next, Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the Waters of the U.S. rule.

Why is this timely?

Because on March 20 this goes into effect. That is why it is so urgent to repeal the 2023 Waters of the U.S. rule.

These are laws.

Were they written by lawmakers?

No. Our Founding Fathers created three branches of government. We have the executive branch which enforces laws, we have the judicial branch which resolves disputes, and we have the legislative branch which is supposed to make the laws. Yet, here we sit abdicating that authority and that responsibility. You can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility, Madam Speaker.

We have a responsibility to the American people to make sure that these laws are concise, that they don't change on the whim of an executive who gets in the White House, that they are not onerous, that they have their intended effect, and that they are applied uniformly across the country.

Yet we have abdicated that responsibility. But we will take that responsibility back by the passage of this rule and the subsequent legislation to repeal the WOTUS, Waters of the United States 2023, by Joe Biden. We, the American people, deserve that.

Finally, I will close by talking about H.R. 140. This is a bill that went through regular order. What a wonderful thing. We have talked about it so much. It is a bill that covers one topic only. We have talked about that so much. Here we are, and we even have a chance--even though it was amended in the committee--to amend it here on the floor to perfect it even more for Members and by Members who aren't members of that committee.

Are these amendments that are not germane?

Are these the kind of amendments that the American people hate where Members offer an amendment and then they stick something into a bill that is completely unrelated to it?

No. Every one of these amendments is germane to this bill. We have made sure of that in the Rules Committee. The gentleman serves on the Rules Committee, and he had plenty of time to voice his concerns there.

So we have a lot of amendments that are great. I think they will improve the bill. But what is most important is that people have a chance to have their point made and to get a vote on this.

Finally, I will talk about what H.R. 140 would fix. It would fix this loophole that they think they have constructed that allows the Federal Government to violate the Constitution.

Obviously, Federal agents can't take away our First Amendment rights, and, obviously, the Constitution wasn't meant to bind social media companies. It was meant to bind the administration.

What we have is a loophole where the administration leans on a social media company that they are paying money to. Millions of dollars have gone to these social media companies from the CDC and from the FBI.

So when they say:

Would you pretty please ban this user?

Or:

Would you pretty please take down these posts? There is a

whole series of these posts.

The government doesn't get in line. They have a back door that they can trot to every day and submit lists of people whom they think should be banned because they don't like what they have said.

This is dangerous to our Republic. If the other side wants to call it a democracy, then it is dangerous to the democracy. But this is a republic.

Our government has built an elaborate but constitutionally unsound framework for violating these natural rights.

As we have seen with the Twitter files, they boldly work in close cooperation with private-sector actors who aren't subject to constitutional restrictions imposed on government by our Founders.

But they also claim foreign influence and national security so they can target U.S. citizens with agencies in the government under the military chain of command whose missions are ostensibly directed at foreign actors who have no constitutional rights.

Elected lawmakers be damned, legions of government lawyers create shaky legal scaffolding and ad hoc doctrine to indemnify the actors within our government who eagerly exploit these loopholes.

In this way, government actors can claim everything they do is legal. They have a bunch of lawyers to back them:

Oh, we didn't do anything illegal, it is all legal. Here,

look at our doctrine. The lawyers have gone through it, it is

all legal.

Here is the problem, Madam Speaker: much of what they do is unconstitutional.

So whose job is it to resolve that difference?

It is actually not the Supreme Court's job. We are entrusted with oversight. We all here swore an oath to the Constitution, and if we know that authorizations that we have made or that funding that we have appropriated has been twisted in a way to get around the Constitution or to drive through a loophole that some lawyers in the administrative branch have created, then it is our obligation--we owe it to the American people, we swore an oath to the Constitution--to fix that--not to make them go to court to get some remedy--but to fix it, to stop it in its tracks.

H.R. 140 with its pending amendments is a good down payment on that promise to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I support this rule, I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution, as amended.

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting to hear the other side of the aisle talk about logic. What we are talking about today is whether to repeal the vaccine mandate on international travelers. Well, what is the logic of having a vaccine mandate on legal international travelers but not on the millions of people who are pouring across our border? Where is the logic in that? I don't see any logic.

It is time for us to join the rest of the free world. You want a list of countries that don't have this mandate? Australia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Germany, France, Ukraine. I could go on and on. Am I memorizing a list of countries? No. I am telling you basically all of the countries in the world. In fact, dictatorships have already gotten rid of this vaccine mandate: Russia, Syria, China. Cuba even doesn't have this draconian xenophobic measure at the border.

Let's talk about the State of the Union Address last night. The President said: Today COVID no longer controls our lives. Gee, I wish that were true. I wish that were true.

Here is a letter I received--now, it is from a foreigner who is related to Americans: Dear sir, I am an Australian. My daughter married an American in September of 2020. My wife and I were not allowed to visit for the wedding. Subsequently, due to the U.S. ban on unvaccinated arrivals, I have not seen my daughter in over 2 years. I appreciate your attempts at overturning this harsh rule. I am sure I speak for many separated families.

Yes, he does. He speaks for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people who have been separated at our border because of this ridiculous, illogical, unscientific policy.

What else did the President say in his State of the Union Address last night? ``We opened our country back up.'' Well, we need to tell all of the tourism industry that we have opened our country back up because the U.S. Travel Association has stated this week, just this week, that it cost over $90 billion. This one policy has cost over $90 billion of revenue, of income to this country in tourism, and that is why they support getting rid of this ridiculous mandate.

What is the Democrats' argument over there? I have heard it all already. I see they are very smug and smiling. They bleat about democracy. They bleat on and on about democracy. Is this democracy?

Their best argument--virtually their only argument--is right here in ``The Whip's Daily Preview'' on the Democrat side: ``House Democrats have been stalwart in their defense of following the science over playing politics with COVID-19. The decision to end vaccine requirements for global travelers should be made by public health experts with real-time understanding of the situation. Hamstringing agencies from responding to ongoing or future threats that could impact the health and economic stability of America undermines our Nation.''

They are arguing that they are not qualified to vote on laws that affect the most basic human rights of people in this country and people wishing to visit this country.

Imagine that. Working so hard to get elected, preaching about democracy, and then getting here and saying: Do you know what? I don't think we should be voting on this because, well, I think the bureaucrats are probably more qualified than we are. The science is hard.

Science is hard. That is basically their argument.

Let's take their argument. Let's listen to the scientists, the bureaucrats. What does the World Health Organization, what does this collection of global scientists, say about this policy? This is real- time because it was January 30, 2023. They had a meeting and said No. 6 in their recommendations: ``Continue to adjust any remaining international travel-related measures, based on risk assessment, and to not require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 as a prerequisite for international travel.''

They love global government. You think the science over there would appeal to the World Health Organization, but if that doesn't work, let's listen to our own CDC, which said in August of last year: If you are deciding to quarantine or mask or any of these other things, it shouldn't be done with respect to vaccination status.

In other words, there is enough natural immunity, and there was in August, for the CDC to say we shouldn't discriminate based on vaccination status when determining policy.

I will just close with this: Let's not be hypocrites. We were all in this room last night, hundreds of us, with hundreds of visitors, and none of us were under a vaccine mandate.

Repeal this vaccine mandate. Vote for H.R. 185 and support the bill.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a report from the WHO Director- General, and a recommendation from the CDC for managing SARS-CoV-2 exposure.

Mr. Chair, I enter into the Recrod two articles:

Statement on the Fourteenth Meeting of the International Health

Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee Regarding the Coronavirus

Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic

The WHO Director-General has the pleasure of transmitting

the Report of the fourteenth meeting of the International

Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) Emergency Committee regarding

the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19).

Continue to adjust any remaining international travel-

related measures, based on risk assessment, and to not

require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 as a

prerequisite for international travel.

Continue to support research for improved vaccines that

reduce transmission and have broad applicability, as well as

research to understand the full spectrum, incidence and

impact of post COVID-19 condition, and to develop relevant

integrated care pathways.

Managing SARS-CoV-2 Exposures

CDC now recommends case investigation and contact tracing

only in health care settings and certain high-risk congregate

settings. In all other circumstances, public health efforts

can focus on case notification and provision of information

and resource to exposed persons about access to testing.

Persons who have had recent confirmed or suspected exposure

to an infected person should wear a mask for 10 days around

others when indoors in public and should receive testing  5

days after exposure (or sooner, if they are symptomatic),

irrespective of their vaccination status. In light of high

population levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence (7, 16),

and to limit social and economic impacts, quarantine of

exposed persons is no longer recommended, regardless of

vaccination status.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

I find it somewhat ironic that the other side is complaining about the process during the debate on the amendment that the other side gets to offer by virtue of a decision in the Rules Committee to open up this process. So this is the process.

The gentleman from Indiana is correct. It is not a given; it has not been established that the CDC has this authority. There is no need for us to legislate beyond the intent of this bill.

The intent of this bill is to eliminate a Presidential order about a COVID vaccine for international travelers. There is no need for us, in this bill, to try and give the CDC additional authority. In fact, the bill is quiet on whether they have this authority, and that is a subject that is being debated in the courts right now.

I also want to point out that the order, as well as the gentleman's amendment, doesn't apply to immigrants. The order that the President has put in place on visitors doesn't apply to illegal immigrants to this United States, and neither would this gentleman's amendment.

So I think when you talk about science and logic, why is it that somebody who is coming here legally would be more of a threat than somebody who is coming here illegally?

So I urge a ``no'' on the amendment, and a ``yes'' on the bill, but mostly, certainly a ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding.

The U.S. should be leading the free world right now but, instead, we are falling behind. Hundreds of countries have a vaccine policy that is more liberal than the United States at the moment.

If you live in Japan, Italy, Spain, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Israel, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, all of our neighbors to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west have gotten rid of their COVID vaccine mandates to enter their countries, but we have not. Why is that?

What is our policy right now?

To enter into the United States, if you are a foreigner, you have to have a COVID vaccine. Who can enter right now without a vaccine?

Well, if you are an illegal alien apprehended at the border and awaiting a trial or a hearing, you don't need a vaccine; just come on into the country, we will check it out later.

What if you are somebody who comes in and you have been vaccinated, but you have got a full-blown case of symptomatic COVID? Oh, you are vaccinated? No problem. Come on in. Bring your new variant, whatever it is. We will welcome you.

If you are a healthy tennis player who has not been vaccinated, then stay out of our country. That is the message that we have been sending.

Our policy is at least 2 years out of date. The U.S. Travel Association recognizes this. They said that every day this policy remains in place encourages some travelers to avoid the U.S., costing us valuable visitor spending and delaying our efforts to re-ignite inbound travel.

So our economy is suffering. But that is not really what compelled to me to offer this bill. I am concerned about the families who have been separated for 3 years; children who haven't seen their parents; spouses who haven't seen each other, separated for 3 years.

There is no religious exemption in the vaccine mandate policy that the United States has. In fact, there are dictatorships that have better policies than ours right now: Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, Syria; oh, not vaccinated? Not a problem because they recognize at least the science behind it.

Mr. Speaker, this is a structured rule. During the debate, we are going to allow three amendments from the Democrats on my bill, and we are going to allow two Republican amendments. I think that is very kind of us. We didn't see this kind of openness and legislative deliberative process when the other party was in the majority.

Think about this as I close: Today, later in this Chamber, there will be over 1,000 people, sharing the oxygen, the air in this room with the President and the Vice President of the United States, and none of those thousand people that will be in this room have been mandated to take the vaccine.

So when you think about casting your vote on this, just consider for a second: Are you being a hypocrite?

None of your staff and none of the Members of this legislative body, or the Supreme Court, or the Senate who are going to join us here later today with the President, none of them have been mandated to take the vaccine. We shouldn't do the same.

We should not project xenophobia from this country. We should allow visitors; we should reunite families; and we should re-ignite our economy by eliminating this policy.

Mr. Speaker, I support the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I find it incredible what the other side of the aisle is saying. They said this bill was rushed to the floor.

Do you remember when this was invoked, the National Emergencies Act? March 13, 2020. After that we were told 15 days to slow the spread. How many days are we up to? Does anybody over there know?

It is over 1,000 days. What has happened in that period of time? How did we get to this position?

The law that Congress passed that was invoked by the former-President and extended by this President, the National Emergencies Act, requires at least every 6 months you vote on whether to extend it. We did not follow the law under the former Speaker.

They used the Rules Committee to prevent this bill from coming to a vote and then the claim that the Senate would need time to deal with this. The Senate has already passed this. The bipartisan Senate passed 61 to 37.

I expect there would have been a lot of votes here but the President came in to try to save their skin. The gig is up, but he wants to keep the music going a little bit longer.

Mr. Biden says that he wants to honor his commitment to give 60 days' notice before ending it because he issued this statement of administrative policy. He only issued this when this bill came to the floor; but he is going to honor his commitment to 60 days' notice.

Why is he taking 100 days? If anybody over there can do the math for me. May 11--is that 60 days from now?

No, it is more like 100 days from now, roughly.

The notion that this was rushed to the floor is ridiculous. Biden wants to keep it going. He wants to spend money under his emergency authorities, which he shouldn't have right now. It is very irresponsible with the debt limit looming and with us in extraordinary measures.

The reality is he wants 100 more days to shove money out the door and to waste money that hasn't been guarded very well or audited. It has been 1,000 into 15 days to slow the spread. It is time to end this emergency now.

Mr. Speaker, I support Mr. Gosar's bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for organizing this time on the floor. I think it is so important.

We are talking about the brace ruling from the ATF. A brace is a firearm accessory for disabled individuals. But I am sure Biden went to his Attorney General and to the ATF and said, you know what, I hate guns. How can I take millions of them off the street, without regard for if they are legally owned? And how can I do it without going to Congress because I really don't be want to do that.

Now, keep in mind, this is administrative law. Our Founders were against this type of thing because they knew that the laws shouldn't change with each administration.

When Democrats controlled both Chambers of Congress and the White House, they didn't pass this legislation.

This ATF rule says that gun owners have 120 days of amnesty to register or destroy their firearm if it has this firearm accessory. If you don't obey, you become a felon.

What this administrative rule does not do is it does not make people safer. This ruling turns millions of law-abiding gun owners into criminals. Tens of millions of pistol braces have been sold in the United States, with the permission of the ATF, the written permission of the ATF.

They are telling you to take this off, or transfer it, or register it like a machine gun, basically, the same paperwork.

If you want to turn it into a short-barreled rifle, guess what? Twenty-six percent of Americans live in a State where the ATF has left them with no option. They will create an illegal gun in their State if they comply with the ATF ruling in order to keep their gun.

How much compliance do we think there is going to be?

Well, there was a bump stock rule similar to this. There are about half a million bump stocks estimated in circulation; 526 have been returned to the government. So they have made half a million felons is what they have done.

Now, Mr. Clyde has several bills to fix this. I can anticipate--or I believe Justice Scalia, if he were alive, I can tell you, I believe, based on a meeting that I had with him, which one he would prefer.

Several of us had breakfast with Scalia, and we said, oh, Obama is so bad, and we don't have the constitutional balance of government. Fix this for us, Supreme Court.

Scalia said, this is not my job to referee fights between you and the executive branch. By the way, you are the most powerful, powerful branch. You are Article I, and you can't--you have all the tools you need to stop what he is doing.

One of my colleagues said, well, impeachment is so hard. Scalia said, I am not talking about impeachment. You are funding everything you complain about.

So I believe that his favorite method here, and it is certainly my favorite method, would have been to defund this activity.

The ruling is unconstitutional. The Second Amendment is clear. Shall not be infringed means shall not be infringed.

I urge all Americans to call their Representatives and support Andrew Clyde's bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution because it would facilitate the passage of H.R. 497, the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act.

What does that bill do? It ends the unscientific, illogical, immoral, unconstitutional, unethical, vaccine mandate on healthcare workers that is predicated on lies.

What are some of those lies? Let's start with the first one.

The first lie: The vaccine prevents spread. Who says that it doesn't prevent spread? Is this an internet conspiracy? Well, it is on the internet, but it is the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, who said 1 year ago, ``What the vaccines can't do anymore is prevent transmission.''

Pfizer admitted they were not asked by regulators to assess whether their shots reduced transmission, nor did their trials measure whether the shots reduced transmission.

What is the second lie that this mandate is predicated on?

The vaccines don't cause any harm, can't cause any harm. They are safe. They are completely safe. You have nothing to worry about. No side effects. No adverse reactions.

Who disputes that? Is it an internet conspiracy? It is the CDC website. Yes, it is on the internet.

The CDC website acknowledges that the vaccines can cause myocarditis, pericarditis, blood clots, and even death.

CDC and FDA recently announced they had identified a preliminary vaccine safety signal for persons 65 and older for the bivalent vaccine, that it could increase their chance of stroke in the 21 days following vaccination with Pfizer's new bivalent vaccine.

What is the third lie that this is predicated on, this vaccine mandate for healthcare workers?

That it is scientific. That it makes sense.

How does it make sense? To require somebody to have two shots targeted at a variant of the virus that is no longer circulating; to have two shots that wear off after 8 months, two shots that were taken 2 years ago.

The CDC acknowledges that those vaccines that are mandated taken two years ago have worn off by now. Why would you mandate them?

What is the fourth lie that this vaccine mandate is predicated on?

It ignores natural immunity.

When the vaccines first came out, the CDC said that the Pfizer trial showed

that the vaccine was 92 percent efficacious for those who had already had COVID.

Guess what? It showed no such thing.

I called the CDC. They admitted to me it was wrong. They said they would fix the website.

Here we are over 2 years later, they haven't fixed that lie on their website. They know it is a lie. I have them on a recording if anybody over there wants to hear it.

Finally, who is liable for the damage that this could cause? Nobody is liable.

We are living under medical malpractice martial law right now under the PREP Act in the EUAs.

Madam Speaker, let me close with this: This vaccine mandate affects nurses; 85 percent of nurses are female.

Joe Biden's COVID vaccine mandate for healthcare workers have forced many from the workplace. Many of them quit nursing as a career, retired early, or didn't pursue it as a degree.

This is the epitome of hypocrisy. Nobody in this room was mandated to take a vaccine, and we are voting on whether we are going to force people who want to take care of people, whether they have to take the vaccine.

End the hypocrisy. None of us were mandated. None of the staff in this room were mandated to take this vaccine. End it now. Support this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the very words expressed by those opposed to this committee demonstrate the dire need for this committee. We have gone 4 years without oversight, and to quote Shakespeare, ``The lady doth protest too much, methinks.''

Those who argue against transparency may have something to hide. So I listened very closely when I heard the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee give the reason that maybe we shouldn't ask for this information from the intelligence community.

He said that the intelligence community after this committee may be reluctant to share information with Congress and that Congress needs to craft legislation.

I would suggest if they are reluctant, then they are disqualified from holding

these positions. If they have grown so big that they are no longer accountable to the branch of government that created them, that funds them, and that is responsible for their oversight, then they need to be hemmed in.

I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to populate this committee with serious Democrats. I know there are some over there. I have worked with them. We have cosponsored amendments on privacy over the past decade. Some of them have passed.

Please populate it with serious Members.

Please, to my colleagues on this side of the aisle, give us the resources we need to do this job.

If I may rebut one thing that man said on the other side of the aisle about ongoing criminal investigations, he said that it is unprecedented that Congress would engage in an investigation that involves an ongoing criminal investigation.

What was the January 6 Committee?

This is not unprecedented. It is what you wasted millions of dollars on over the past 2 years.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this rule and support for the committee that it will create.

Mr. Speaker, last month we ended the vaccine mandate for the military, but there are still many unscientific, illogical, and unconstitutional mandates for vaccines in this country.

If you watched C-SPAN last week, you saw 434 of us in here screaming, yelling, cheering, speaking--many of us unvaccinated. Most of us probably not boosted.

Why do we have a double standard?

Why do we make visitors of this country get vaccinated just to visit their friends and family?

Why are we separating families over this?

We need to end that mandate. We need to end the healthcare mandate. We need to end all of the mandates, and we need to do this now.

Mr. Speaker, thousands of members of the military have terminated their service for our country because of the COVID military vaccine mandate.

Thousands more have chosen early retirement, and thousands have not enlisted. Recruitment is down. Our national security is suffering because of this.

It is time to treat the men and women of our military who have signed up and pledged their lives to defend this country with the respect they deserve. It is time to get rid of the COVID vaccine mandate for the military.

My bill, H.R. 3860, would do that. I introduced it in June 2021. Since then, we have garnered over 90 cosponsors for that bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, as they consider the language of the National Defense Authorization Act this week, to include the language of H.R. 3860 to protect the brave men and women of our military.

Mr. Speaker, there is not a more fierce fighter than Louie Gohmert in this House, and if you are serving in this House and have a bigger heart than Louie Gohmert, I haven't met you yet. I am sorry. I need to find you. I haven't found anybody with a heart the size of Louie Gohmert's.

One of the measures, I think, of a Member here is how they treat their staff and how their staff responds to them. Louie Gohmert attracts the best talent of anybody in this Chamber, and they love him. We love Louie Gohmert.

I remember my first week in Congress. I was in conference. We were going to elect a Speaker, and nobody was challenging Speaker Boehner. Louie Gohmert got up to nominate somebody else. He reminded us all that you didn't have to be a Member of the House to be nominated for Speaker. I was just praying that he didn't nominate Ron Paul because I knew I would have to second that nomination.

I leaned to the person next to me, and I said: ``Who is that guy making that nomination?'' He said: ``Oh, that is Louie Gohmert. He is crazy.''

Well, within a week, I realized Louie Gohmert was the only sane man in this Chamber, and for 10 years, he has been guiding me. He has a photographic memory and is sharp as a whip. He is like an encyclopedia of everything that has happened in this Chamber while he was here, before I got here.

One day in conference, they were telling us: Look, when the quarterback calls the play and snaps the ball, you don't execute another play. They were imploring us to do something, frankly, that wasn't in the best interests of the people from Tyler, Texas, nor in the interests of the people from Kentucky.

I asked Louie: Louie, what are you going to do when the quarterback snaps the ball?

He said: When the quarterback snaps the ball and runs for the wrong end zone, I am not obligated to block for him. In fact, I might have to tackle him.

Louie Gohmert has never been afraid to go against the grain when it means supporting the people from Texas' First District, and that is the people I thank for loaning us Louie Gohmert, for having the good discernment to send him to Congress in the first place and then to send him back. America has benefited from the good judgment of the people in Texas' First District.

We are going to miss you very much, sorely, Louie.

Yes.

Madam Speaker, I want to be the first to admit, this is a difficult bill to debate. It sounds good. I believe the intentions of the other side of the aisle are good as well. Nobody should be subjected to sexual harassment.

But there is a problem. We are legislating outside of our domain. We are violating States' rights in doing this. The law that is being proposed to pass today here has already in some form or another been implemented in 15 different States. But guess what, those 15 different States don't all have the same solution. It is sort of arrogant for us to sit here and say that we are going to come up with a one-size-fits- all that is going to be better than anything those 15 States have done.

I say to my constituents at home, that there are three tests that I apply to any bill before voting for it.

The first test is, is it constitutional. This bill is questionable whether it is constitutional because it would regulate intrastate contracts, not just interstate contracts. We all know we have no business inside of the States.

The other test that I apply is, can we afford it. Well, ostensibly, this bill doesn't cost that much to impose a new thing on employers or on contracts.

But the third test that I always apply is, is this something we should solve at the Federal level or can States do it better? That is where this bill fails. The States can legislate on this. The States have legislated on this; 15 different States since 2018 have legislated on this.

In fact, as I read this bill and as we debated it, I wondered what is the definition of sexual harassment. Well, the bill itself refers to the State definitions of sexual harassment. It is tacitly acknowledging that contract law is the domain of the States. There was a concern expressed during the debate in committee on this that is this the camel putting its nose in the tent when we let Federal laws intervene in or override State laws, and that was a concern that was expressed.

But it wasn't a conspiracy theory that there would be more legislation after that. In fact, the ink is not even dry on this; the vote hasn't happened today. But 2 days ago, just recently, the Executive Office of the President, OMB, issued a Statement of Administration Policy about this bill.

They are giddy at overriding State laws and breaking State contracts. In fact, their statement says: ``The administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress to advance broader legislation that addresses the range of issues implicated in NDAs and nondisparagement clauses.'' They can't wait to do more of this. They can't wait to take over the State legislatures' roles in legislating these issues.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' against this. I know it is a tough vote. I know the other side has good intentions, but this is the wrong bill.

Mr. Speaker, if facts are the ammunition of debate, I point out that the other side of the aisle entered this room unarmed.

There are so many mischaracterizations or misfires, if you will, about this bill and what this bill does that I don't know where to start.

But let me start here with the words of the author of this bill. He says it will ban weapons of war only suitable for soldiers in combat.

Is that what it does? Does it ban an M16? It doesn't ban an M16 or an M4. It bans the most commonly sold rifle in the United States today and for the last several years.

It doesn't ban weapons of war. It explicitly exempts the M1 Garand. General Patton said the M1 Garand is the finest implement of battle ever devised. Why is it exempted? It is a weapon of war.

It exempts the M1 Carbine. Look at the picture of the soldiers, the marines at Iwo Jima. What were they carrying? The M1 Carbine.

It exempts the quintessential Cold War weapon, the pride of the Chinese and the Communists, the SKS. It is exempted in this bill. These are literal weapons of war that are not in this bill.

Now, they will come back and ban those, but they don't want to ban them right now because they don't look scary enough. They have a wooden forestock and a wooden butt. They not made of plastic. They don't look like the scary stuff on the news, so they have no interest in banning that.

Literal, actual weapons of war are not banned, but the most common firearm sold today is banned.

But let's take them at their word. Weapons of war. These are weapons of war. We have got to ban weapons of war.

Well, they exempt 80-some Federal agencies from the ban. Literally, every bureaucratic agency in the government can have a weapon of war under this bill; weapons of war as they call them.

So we offered an amendment in the committee. We couldn't conceive of why the Department of Education would need a weapon of war to complete their mission of educating our children; coming up with the curriculum.

We couldn't conceive of why the USDA would need weapons of war, so we offered an amendment to exempt the USDA and the Department of Education from being able to have these weapons of war; so-called weapons of war.

Every Democrat, even though they couldn't give us a good reason of why these agencies would need weapons of war, or with whom they planned to go to war--are they bringing them to the school board? Where are they going to bring these things?

Now, they couldn't give a good reason why these agencies would need weapons of war. But they all voted to allow these agencies to have weapons of war.

Now, the reason they did, we came to that conclusion is, they aren't weapons of war. It is the most common firearm sold in the United States today. These are not weapons of war.

There was one Democrat who did articulate a reason. He said, well, they are actually good for defense. You have might need them to defend the Department of Education. Well, that is what the Second Amendment is about.

It is not about making sure that the Department of Education--which, by the way, is unconstitutional--but it is not making sure that the Department of Education could have proper defense; it is for the people to have proper defense. So that is the first falsehood.

Now, here is another reason that gun owners should be concerned about this bill. Maybe you don't own one of these firearms, but if you own guns, you know about terminal ballistics. You know what are suitable calibers for hunting deer, for hunting coyotes.

We have heard it said here today, and in the committee, and they showed us a video, oh, the terminal ballistics of a .223 round are so dangerous that we need to ban these AR-15s because they shoot .223 rounds.

What they didn't show you was a video of a deer cartridge, like a .30-06, or a 7-millimeter, or a .308.

If you are banning--if the purpose of this legislation is to ban these firearms because they shoot a cartridge with

those terminal ballistics of a .223, then you plan, you absolutely plan to come after deer rifles because they have two and three times as much power; two and three times as much destructive and killing power as the firearm--as the cartridge used in the firearm that you seek to ban here today.

Another falsehood. This bill will save lives. Let me get to this. We heard it here today. I was waiting for it. It was mentioned a couple of times. Even the Speaker of the House mentioned it.

They have said that the 1994-2004 assault weapons ban--so-called assault weapons--reduced crime; that crime went down. Well, guess what? From 1995-2004, there were 2 million of these firearms imported or manufactured and sold.

The number of these rifles doubled in the United States during your last assault weapons ban. If you think crime went down because of the last assault weapons ban, then you have got some explaining to do because the number of those rifles increased. Maybe, just maybe people became safer.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to this bill.

Madam Speaker, before I talk about the substance of this bill, or the lack thereof, I would like to put it in the context of the other dozen or so unserious, unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unsafe responses to gun shootings in this country that the Democrats have offered and passed in this Chamber.

What have they done? Well, they passed a law to ban magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. The chairman of the Rules Committee claimed that this would stop shootings like the one at Virginia Tech. What he failed to mention is the shooter at Virginia Tech never used a magazine that had more than 15 rounds. That is an example of an unserious solution that has come from this body.

What else have they done? They have changed the definition of a gun dealer so that any law-abiding individual who sells a firearm to anybody and makes a profit off it now might be a gun dealer and, therefore, prosecutable in a Federal crime.

What else have they done that is unserious or unconstitutional? Well, they have passed a law to ban gun trafficking. The problem is that is already illegal.

Who did they sweep up in this dragnet in this new law? Well, they swept up domestic violence victims who might ask a neighbor for a firearm. Now, they can be prosecuted. Not the neighbor, not just the Good Samaritan, but also the domestic violence victim can be prosecuted as a gun trafficker under a bill that they passed here.

Recognizing this flaw, I offered an amendment to fix it in the Judiciary Committee. Every Democrat but one--one of them had a little bit of common sense--voted against that amendment to fix their own bill.

What else have they done? Well, they passed a bill that I am going to call unconstitutional on arrival. It has already been ruled unconstitutional if you read the D.C. v. Heller decision. The Supreme Court Justices said that you can't force Mr. Dick Heller to keep his gun unloaded and disassembled in his house because that violates the Second Amendment. But that is exactly what one of their laws that came through this Chamber in just the past couple of months does. It is called the so-called safe storage act. It is already unconstitutional.

Who likes this bill more than anybody? Home invaders. Oh, my gosh, wouldn't it be great to know that, by Federal law, everybody who has a firearm now has to have it locked up and unattainable, inaccessible in the amount of time that it would take to respond to a home invader?

What else have they done? A red flag bill that deprives citizens of their due process and endangers police officers, who are going to be required to respond in predawn raids of people who haven't had due process, have never had their day in court, haven't even reached a level of evidence that is sufficient. The red flag bill is bad.

What else have they done? They passed a bill to deprive 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds of purchasing semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic shotguns. They are already deprived of their constitutional right to buy a handgun, but now we are just going to sweep in all of these things.

Are they going to then raise the draft age to 21 now that we are saying Uncle Sam will give you a gun? Uncle Sam can conscript you to the military, send you overseas to fight for a Constitution that doesn't even protect you or your wife, who is at home taking care of the kids, if you are 18-, 19-, or 20-year-olds.

They don't care. This one is also unconstitutional on arrival. The Ninth Circuit, one of the most liberal circuits in the country, has already ruled that.

Why is this so disturbing? We heard earlier today from one of my colleagues in this debate that she wants to ban assault weapons. Well, the House Democrat Twitter account tweeted that all semiautomatic rifles are weapons of war. Really? There are a lot of people in Kentucky who own Remington 750 deer rifles who are going to be shocked to find out that they purchased a weapon of war. If you saw one of these, I think you would all agree this is not a weapon of war.

It is an alarm to every American who is out there watching this debate that they are coming after your guns.

Now, let's get to the substance of this bill, or the lack thereof. Why are we here debating this bill? This is the second time we have voted on it, the second time we debated it. Why are we here again? Because they tried to suspend the rules of this body and get it through without following the rules of this House, and they failed. That is why we are here again, to give it the debate it deserves.

The bill is called the Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022. In the Democrat cities where they defunded the police, I think you should call it the you are on your own act of 2022. Yes, that is right.

They are going to tell you that you are on your own.

But can you turn this thing off in Chicago? How will you get any sleep because you have a shooting literally every night in Chicago? If they were serious about stopping crime or helping individuals, this would have been called the active violence alert act.

Madam Speaker, what about violence committed with a car, violence committed with a knife? No concern for that because the true purpose of this bill passing here today is to scare people. It is to scare people on their phones. They can't get away from their phones.

It is going to be popping up saying, be afraid, somebody's got a gun, and they are going to try and condition the American public to ask to repeal the Second Amendment, either explicitly or implicitly, here in this Chamber.

Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this bill.