Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7324) to make improvements in the enactment of title 41, United States Code, into a positive law title and to improve the Code.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 7324.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7324. This bill was prepared for the House Committee on the Judiciary by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

Congress enacted a restatement of title 41 into a positive law title more than 13 years ago in January 2011. Since that time, Congress has continued to legislate on matters within title 41, which necessitates the bill to update that title before us today.

This bill does not change the substance of any law on the books. It simply updates title 41 to account for laws passed by Congress since 2011. The bill also updates and corrects technical matters, such as cross-references to other parts of the U.S. Code that have changed since 2011.

I thank my colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary for the bipartisan way that we handle these bills. I urge support of H.R. 7324, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve and am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the bill also, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7341) to make technical amendments to title 49, United States Code, as necessary to improve the Code.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 7341.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7341. This bill was prepared for the House Committee on the Judiciary by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

In 2021, Congress enacted the Surface Transportation Investment Act of 2021. That law created a new chapter 224 in title 49. H.R. 7341 makes various technical corrections in title 49 to account for the creation of that new chapter.

This bill does not change the substance of any law on the books. It simply updates title 49 to account for laws passed by Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary for the bipartisan way that we handle these bills. I urge support of H.R. 7341, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7339) to make revisions in title 51, United States Code, as necessary to keep the title current, and to make technical amendments to improve the United States Code.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 7339.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7339. This bill was prepared for the Judiciary Committee by the Office of Law Revision Counsel.

In 2010, Congress enacted a restatement of title 51 making it a positive law title. Since that time, Congress has continued to legislate on matters within title 51, which necessitates the bill to update the title before us today.

This bill does not change the substance of any law on the books. It simply updates title 51 to account for laws passed by Congress. I thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee for the bipartisan way that we handle these bills. I urge support of H.R. 7339, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of this bill also, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7316) to make improvements in the enactment of title 54, United States Code, into a positive law title and to correct related technical errors.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 7316.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7316. This bill was prepared for the Judiciary Committee by the Office of Law Revision Counsel.

In 2014, Congress enacted a restatement of title 54 making it a positive law title. Since that time, Congress has continued to legislate on matters within title 54.

H.R. 7316 further updates title 54 to account for those laws subsequently passed by Congress. This bill does not change the substance of any law on the books; it simply updates title 54 to account for laws passed by Congress.

I thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee for the bipartisan way that we handle these bills.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support for H.R. 7316, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I also urge support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7326) to amend chapters 4, 10, and 131 of title 5, United States Code, as necessary to keep those chapters current and to correct related technical errors.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 7326.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7326. This bill was prepared for the Judiciary Committee by the Office of Law Revision Counsel. OLRC is a nonpartisan office of the House of Representatives charged with assisting us in keeping the U.S. Code organized and up to date.

As part of that mandate, OLRC will submit bills for our consideration, as necessary. These bills do not change the substance of any law on the books. They are purely technical and ministerial in nature.

H.R. 7326 amends chapters 4, 10, and 131 of title 5 to account for bills passed by Congress since we last addressed it 2 years ago. I thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee for the bipartisan way in which we handle these bills. I urge support for H.R. 7326, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz).

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia and I are pleased to be working expeditiously to get this done within 20 minutes. I urge support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of Chairman Westerman's bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act.

This bill is the culmination of the House Committee on Natural Resources' efforts this Congress to advance innovative solutions to increase the pace and scale of forest management, protect vulnerable communities from catastrophic wildfires, and restore health and resiliency to our Nation's ailing forests and Federal lands.

Addressing the health of our forests and rangelands is not an issue that will be solved by simply throwing more dollars at it. We need substantive changes in our land management practices.

Undermining active forest management has caused damage to our Nation's forests and Federal lands, and we have seen the consequences of this mismanagement out West, resulting in year after year of bad wildfire seasons.

We can act right now to reverse this trend, and that starts with passing this bill.

This bill contains streamlined tools to expedite bureaucratic environmental reviews, ending frivolous litigation that delays important projects, expanding Good Neighbor Authority, prioritizing high-risk forests, and a fix to the Cottonwood decision, which is responsible for doubling the cost of some projects.

It also includes my bill, the ACRES Act, which requires land managers to produce yearly hazardous fuels reduction reports based on the actual number of acres that they treated, and I will note that this proposal already passed the House with robust bipartisan support.

The provisions included in this bill will lead to better management, which in turn, will result in better outcomes for our land managers and our local communities with fewer wildfires and a cleaner environment.

To one of the comments, Mr. Chair, that was shared previously about the firefighter problem we have and the danger they are being put in, the number one thing we can do to protect firefighters' health and life is to manage our forests.

Take a look at this chart here to my right where you see forest management. The amount of wood that is being harvested, all from our Federal forests, steadily declined since the 1980s.

What happened with wildfires? They increased significantly. There is a direct correlation. Manage our forests, take timber off from it, and we will not have these wildfires as we have seen since 1988.

I thank the chairman, Mr. Westerman, for his tireless work on this in the Natural Resources Committee, which I sit on, and I urge passage of this bill.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his leadership.

Mr. Chair, who do you want in charge of a pandemic policy in the United States? Do you want the corrupt globalists at the World Health Organization in charge of it, or do you want the United States of America to be at the wheel of our pandemic policy?

The answer is simple.

The World Health Organization has proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted to carry out an effective pandemic response.

In 2019, they ignored Taiwan's early warning about the COVID-19 outbreak, then they parroted the lies of the Chinese Communist Party that there was no human-to-human transmission.

Now, the Biden-Harris administration is seeking to reward them with our pandemic management.

The pandemic treaty draft includes no accountability or improved transparency measures for the CCP in its role in covering up the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It focuses on mandated resource and technology transfers and shreds intellectual property rights. It also contains certain provisions that may police our First Amendment rights.

Lastly, it does not protect the sovereignty of the United States of America. This legislation is a no-brainer for anyone who stands for transparency and America's sovereignty.

It would require any convention or agreement resulting from the work of the World Health Organization's intergovernmental negotiating body to be deemed a treaty, thus requiring the advice and consent of two- thirds of the Senate.

Given the vast reach of this so-called pandemic treaty, don't we want Congress to have oversight of it?

I encourage all my colleagues to support this bill, but more importantly, I urge all my colleagues to choose American sovereignty because that is really what is at stake today.

I would also say, Mr. Chair, I am hearing from the other side, from the gentleman from New York, it sounds like he has a draft of the treaty. If he does, we would like to see it because we have not received a final draft of the treaty, and that is part of the impetus for this bill.

If we are going to have transparency and accountability for the American people, which we should certainly have, then we need to see the document. Produce the document, allow us to be able to review it, and have the United States Senate, a body of the people of the United States of America, be able to ratify this very important agreement that may have far-reaching impacts on the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Kenny Bednarek of Rice Lake, Wisconsin, on qualifying for the Paris Summer Olympics in the 100- and 200-meter sprints.

Kenny is from a small town in northwest Wisconsin where he has been representing the Seventh District since he was in high school. At Rice Lake High School, he captured seven individual State titles and led his team to the 4-by-400 relay championship. He then went on to set the fastest indoor 200-meter time in the United States and the second fastest in the world before becoming an Olympian in 2020.

During the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, he won a silver medal in the 200-meter dash.

I wish Kung Fu Kenny and all of the U.S. athletes the best of luck in Paris. Go for the gold.

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment strikes funding in the bill to close existing Forest Service roads. Maintaining and expanding access to our public lands has been a priority for me and many of my colleagues on the Natural Resources Committee this Congress.

Another lesser-known but equally important threat to access is the closure and decommissioning of roads and trails. Since 1991, the Forest Service has decommissioned an average of 2,000 miles of roads per year. Public lands across the Nation are under threat from big-city environmental groups that are hellbent on restricting public access to our shared public lands.

Shutting down these avenues for access doesn't just limit opportunities for recreational opportunities, like hunting, fishing, and ATVing, but it also makes responsible management efforts more difficult and expensive. That is exactly their goal.

My subcommittee saw these road closures firsthand in the Chequamegon- Nicolet National Forest in my district during a field hearing in May. It is not a coincidence that many of these local road closures correlate with the decline in the local forest products industry, the same industry that helps keep our forests and the communities that depend on them healthy and vibrant.

Forest Service roads can also act as an important firebreak for wildfires and allow quicker access for fighting them.

The language of decommissioning roads that are no longer needed is quite vague. In my experience, the Forest Service has not been very good about coordinating with local communities before closing roads that many people use.

Mr. Chair, why are we spending tax dollars to close roads we spent tax money to build?

It makes no sense.

Let's make a U-turn on the harmful policy and stop throwing up roadblocks that make it more difficult for Americans to visit these special places. I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I wish the gentlewoman would have been with us on our tour in May in northern Wisconsin. She would have heard from local people, local elected officials, State elected officials, and others who are harmed by these road closures that are happening.

The waste of tax dollars is very significant. We saw perfectly fine roads

that had been constructed to do logging projects and then they were removed.

We heard from a couple of elderly ladies who are berry pickers, which is a favorite pastime of many people up in northern Wisconsin at this time of year. They used to go out there and be able to pick berries now and then. They can no longer do that.

This is denying access to the very people who want to use our public lands that are taken care of with their tax dollars. There is no reason to close these roads. These roads have been active, oftentimes for decades, with no problems, and it is not rational to use the argument that this is going to harm the watershed.

If you come to some of the areas that we toured on our trip in May, you will see some of the finest waters that you will find in northern Wisconsin, and they were that way when these roads were active. There is no reason that we should be closing and decommissioning these roads.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Madam Chair, listen to the Orwellian language that we heard from the other side here in regard to irregular migration.

This is laundering that is going on. This is laundering via the welcome court and the Safe Mobility Office. The other thing that we heard was civility. How could this possibly be civil?

Is it civil to have human trafficking on an epic scale?

Is it civil to have cartels that are brutalizing people, women especially, who are being raped and murdered coming through the southern border and the fentanyl crisis that is the number one killer of our young people in America?

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would prevent the enforcement of arbitrary, self-imposed State

Department rules that limit communication between U.S. officials and their counterparts in Taiwan.

In essence, these guidelines are designed to prevent high-level coordination between our two countries. That isn't just bad policy, but it is in direct conflict with existing laws that call for expanding bilateral cooperation, such as the Taiwan Travel Act.

These rules inhibit the ability of high-ranking U.S. Defense officials to work with military planners in Taipei. They impose degrading and embarrassing restrictions that serve no reasonable purpose, such as a ban on displaying Taiwan's flag and the playing of Taiwan's national anthem at functions held on U.S. Government property. They even police language, warning American officials not to refer to Taiwan as a country or its elected leaders as a government.

These directives do not help the United States and they do not help Taiwan, but they do help the Chinese Communist Party.

That is why former President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got rid of them.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration quietly reinstated them in 2021, and that is why I am offering this amendment today.

Mr. Chair, it makes no sense that a State Department memo supersedes the laws we pass.

America should not have to ask China for a permission slip to talk to our friends and allies in Taiwan or anywhere else.

My amendment will make sure we don't by scrapping these so-called guidelines. I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, let's go back to 1979. The executive branch sometimes does not get it right, as we saw with President Jimmy Carter who adopted the One China policy here and Congress had to step in with the Taiwan Relations Act in order to make sure that Taiwan was identified as a country. That is what we have seen in the ensuing times since approximately 1980.

It is appropriate for Congress to step in in a situation like this when we see an administration that shows weakness toward China, and we have seen the impacts of that weakness across the globe.

Congress will stand with Taiwan, and I hope all of Congress will stand with Taiwan.

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

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment would withhold U.S. contributions from the corrupt and scandal-plagued United Nations.

It is about time.

Despite making up less than 5 percent of the world's population, Americans remain the largest single state contributor to the U.N., footing around one-quarter of its multibillion-dollar budget.

In other words, we pick up the lion's share of the tab, while unaccountable, international bureaucrats make the rules.

What have our donations financed?

Decades of mismanagement, waste, fraud, and abuse; endless anti- Semitic Israel bashing; more than a dozen UNRWA employees participating directly in the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and potentially 1,000 more with links to Hamas; seats on the U.N.'s so-called Human Rights Council for the notorious rulers of countries like Communist China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela; incompetent U.N. agencies like the World Health Organization, which ignored Taiwan's early warnings about the dangerous Wuhan virus and chose instead to run interference for Beijing.

Mr. Chair, the know-it-alls at the U.N. don't limit themselves to headline grabbing matters of international concern.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization recently cooked up a plan to take on backyard barbecues, burgers, and brats, demanding that Americans eat less beef, less pork, less poultry to reduce emissions.

This meatheaded move is just the latest half-baked scheme on the U.N.'s menu of dumb ideas.

Mr. Chair, it is time to put the U.N.'s bloated bureaucracy on a diet and stop outsourcing our sovereignty to this shady transnational organization.

Mr. Chair, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I am being whipsawed here. We looked at the previous amendment that I offered with a chance to stand up against the PRC in reference to Taiwan, and we hear a ``no'' vote is urged.

Now we are being told that the PRC is going to take over the United Nations.

It is time to start looking out for America's interests. In particular, I have authored a resolution that I hope to see in July in regard to the World Health Organization, which stood with Beijing rather than the people of the world. We saw the devastation of what was done as a result of the virus that almost certainly came from a lab in Wuhan and devastated our world.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``yes'' vote on this. It is time to take care of America first, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, join us in making America first.

I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would prohibit the expenditure of funds to extend what is known as temporary protected status, or TPS, for nationals of El Salvador.

TPS is a tool provided by Congress that allows for the President, acting through the Department of Homeland Security, to allow foreign nationals to remain temporarily in the United States if conditions in their home country are too dangerous to send them back.

The intent was to authorize a short reprieve from removal, with the idea being that the beneficiaries would be repatriated when conditions improved. Unfortunately, however, like so many immigration laws, this narrow authority has been repeatedly abused.

Nationals of El Salvador, for example, were granted TPS in the chaotic aftermath of an earthquake. Here is the problem: That earthquake was in 2001, more than two decades ago.

Mr. Chair, times have changed. Since 2001, America has had four presidents and El Salvador has had five. El Salvador now boasts the lowest homicide rate of any country in our hemisphere, other than Canada, not to mention a robust tourism ministry that markets whale watching, surfing, gourmet coffee tours, scenic volcano hikes, and posh all-inclusive resorts.

Mr. Chair, I am glad that El Salvador has recovered from the 2001 earthquake, and I applaud the progress their leader has made in combating crime and promoting economic reform.

However, the ``T'' in TPS stands for ``temporary.'' TPS was never intended to operate as a permanent loophole to provide rolling amnesty to hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals, most of whom were here illegally to begin with.

Mr. Chair, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Amodei).

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

Mr. Chair, I would just add, in response to the comments that we just heard from the other side of the aisle, they should tell the American people who have suffered through the fentanyl deaths that are the number one killer of young people in America. Tell that to the American people as they see terrorists come into this country. Tell this to the people of America as they see murders happen all over the country, including people dying in my district clear up in northern Wisconsin.

We also heard about continuous natural disasters. There are always natural disasters in every country. Do we let people from every country come in just because they have natural disasters?

This is TPS. It is temporary. Twenty years is plenty of temporary. It is time to stop the temporary protected status for El Salvador.

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

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment is very similar to the prior amendment. It prohibits the expenditure of funds to extend temporary protected status, in this case to nationals from Honduras.

That ``T'' in TPS is important because it stands for ``temporary.'' In the case of Honduras, this temporary designation was issued in response to a hurricane. When did that hurricane make landfall, you might ask? It was in October of 1998. Bill Clinton was in the White House, gasoline was $1.05 per gallon, Microsoft had just replaced General Electric as America's most valuable company, and the first BlackBerry wouldn't hit store shelves for another year. Yet this temporary amnesty continues.

Like El Salvador, conditions in Honduras have improved. The country elected a new President in 2022, completing a peaceful transfer of power. Honduras also has an active tourism industry, marketing ziplining, visits to U.N. World Heritage sites, world-class scuba diving, and some of the Caribbean's best beaches and all-inclusive resorts.

If Honduras is safe enough to welcome millions of tourists each year, isn't it safe enough to welcome Hondurans back home?

Mr. Chair, it is time to put the ``T'' back in TPS. TPS was never intended to be the ``Hotel California'' that says illegal aliens can check in anytime but they can never leave.

Mr. Chair, I ask for a ``yes'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this is the appropriate forum to bring this before. It is to deny funding for something that is no longer temporary. This has become, we might as well rename it PPS, permanent protective status rather than TPS.

This is the appropriate venue to deny the funding to allow the President to continue to use this just like every other means, whether it is parole and all other type things, to be able to allow people to illegally come into our country.

By the way, what country around the world hasn't had a natural disaster?

Are we going to let people come in from every country in the world when there is a hurricane, a typhoon, or an earthquake, whatever natural disaster happens?

That is what we are being set up for here.

When we hear gang violence being talked about, why is there so much gang violence in those countries?

It is, in part, because we have open borders. I was in Panama 3 years ago. I went to the Darien Gap. I saw what was going on down there when hundreds of thousands of people were coming in through the Darien Gap. It is now tens of thousands of people who are going through the Darien Gap making their way up through Central America, including Honduras. That is, in part, what is destabilizing these countries.

If we would pass H.R. 2 and we had a President who chose to secure the border, then we would see safer countries, and we would no longer need TPS in countries like Honduras.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6651 to rename the United States Post Office located at 603 3rd Street in Necedah, Wisconsin, after a very distinguished veteran, Sergeant Kenneth E. Murphy.

Sergeant Murphy was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his gallantry in Vietnam, as well as the Purple Heart.

Sergeant Murphy was born and raised in Necedah and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam war. On November 9, 1966, while serving as a squad leader on a search and destroy mission in Tuy Hoa, he fearlessly ran through fire to help his fellow soldiers who were wounded. While he was wounded twice, once in the head, he continued to serve fearlessly and led his team to attack the enemy, break out of their trap, and finally overwhelm the insurgent force.

Sergeant Murphy continues to reside in Necedah today. Wisconsin and our Nation are grateful for his service and bravery.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation today because we have a very simple question that lies before us: Is the 21st century going to be an American century or a Chinese century?

We all know the history of the 20th century. As we left the 20th century, America stood ascendant, that shining city on the hill. Now, as we go into the 21st century, the question needs to be asked again: Whose century will this be, because the Chinese seek hegemony. One of the ways in which they do it is to control the minerals that are traded around the world.

We stand here today, and this is one of the small decision points that we are going to make. It is no different than, right across from northern Minnesota, there is a natural gas plant that is being held up by the Biden administration and a few small, select group of local people to prevent a natural gas-fired plant from being built. Making one of those small decisions, are we going to be dependent on other countries because, if we are dependent, then we will not be that shining city on a hill.

I think about the goals that this administration has stated. They have talked about American manufacturing, and I hear it from both sides. We must have American manufacturing. How are we going to have American manufacturing if we don't produce some of the minerals and the metals that come out of the ground? How are we going to have American manufacturing if we don't produce some of that in America?

I hear that this administration wants to make sure that there is union labor. There is a project labor agreement that is in place to be able to build this mine. This is going to create union jobs, one of the goals of this administration.

Certainly, my colleagues have talked about electrification. We want to electrify our vehicle fleet as well as getting rid of natural gas, natural gas-fired stoves. How are we going to get there if we don't have the minerals that produce those devices that are going to be able to provide that? Remember, in every Toyota Prius, there is 60 pounds of copper. How are we going to electrify the vehicle fleet without producing minerals right here in America?

I think back to January 20, 2021, and the very first action that this administration took saying that they are going to shut down Keystone XL, and making it very clear we are going to be energy dependent once again. What immediately happened to the price of oil? It went from $60 a barrel. Within a couple of months, it was up to $100 a barrel, enriching the despot Vladimir Putin, who has used it to wage war in eastern Europe.

That is what happens when we do not utilize our natural resources, whether it is our forest resources, our mineral resources, or our oil and natural gas resources. We end up being dependent on other countries.

I hear consistently from the other side that the minority is all for mining, but then I pose the question to my colleagues: Where? Where do minority Members support new mines? It is easy to say: Well, a mine has been there for a hundred years and to be able to support it and the union jobs that oftentimes come with it, but where do Democratic Members support new mining in America?

The opposing side's witness could not answer that question at our hearing, and I still haven't heard an answer from the minority yet. Where do my colleagues support mining in America if Democrats support mining?

Twin Metals has gone through an exhaustive process, and they have been proving that they can do this. Let them finish the process here of the rigorous environmental permitting that we have, not just at the Federal level, but at the State level because, living in Minnesota's neighboring State, Wisconsin, I know how rigorous the State of Minnesota's mining regulations are.

We have a choice before us today. Are we going to allow dirty mining around the world to be able to provide our natural resources in America, or are we going to respect the health of people, which we have the best health standards of anyone in the world? We have the best safety standards. Go to Congo and see the safety standards that are there with 8-year-olds mining in Congo.

We have the highest and best environmental standards. If we want workers to be safe, if we want them to be healthy, if we want to have the highest environmental standards, then we will support American mining.

Mr. Speaker, I will just close with this: In 1960, John

Mr. Speaker, what a success we are celebrating here today: The Endangered Species Act and how it worked with the wolf. It worked. It has recovered. We should be celebrating that here today.

Don't take our word for it. Take these 26 scientists' names right behind me. We have heard repeatedly today about how we should be trusting science. Scientists are not saying that. I will put these scientists, these wildlife biologists, up against any scientist here in America who is in the upper Great Lakes States. They sent a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service 10 years ago saying: Delist the wolf. It is recovered. You are going to endanger the Endangered Species Act if you don't delist a recovered species.

The fine State of Wisconsin, which I represent the Seventh Congressional District, was impugned, in particular, the hunters of the State of Wisconsin. We have had three successful wolf hunts: 2011, 2012, 2013, and once again in 2021. Each time, the numbers rebounded right back to where they were before or grew even more. That is a sign of having a successful hunt, that you are managing the population in an appropriate manner.

One of the most eminent predator biologists appeared before our committee last year and spoke about that, how up to 30 percent--29 percent being the exact number--but up to about 30 percent of take can happen of a particular species and it still will recover. That is peer- reviewed science, and that is why you see these 26 eminent wildlife biologists saying that the wolf should be delisted.

I want to talk a little bit about dead animals and killing cattle. It is not the cattle that they kill that causes the harm to a rancher or a farmer. It is the reduction in production.

It is the reduction in the amount of milk that a dairy cow produces when they are stirred up by wolves tracking them. It is the reduced rate of gain for a beef farmer. That is what puts farmers out of business in wolf country. It is not the actual killing of the animal.

The gentleman can cite these arcane statistics like this. That does not get at the heart of the harm that it does to farmers.

It is time to let the States manage the wolf population because there are other species, as was said in our hearing, that perhaps we should be dedicating time to. If you have a recovered species, and additional time and effort by the Fish and Wildlife Service is being put into a species that has already recovered like the wolf, we are not able to deal with other species.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. D'Esposito). The time of the gentleman has expired.

It requires additional resources for species that may be headed in that direction.

As these 26 wildlife biologists said in their letter that they sent 10 years ago, the ultimate danger in not delisting the wolf, a recovered species, is that you are going to endanger the Endangered Species Act and diminish its value.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in support of the warrant amendment. I will speak on the warrant amendment here for a couple minutes that were about to vote on today.

I hold in my hands here a document that states all the reasons why the warrant amendment should not be adopted by this Congress, and I will cite one item, specifically. Number 5 cites the current FBI director. He goes on to say that Russia has launched the most violent ground war in Europe since the 1940s as a justification for not passing this amendment.

Will Americans giving up their civil rights prevent that?

China has rapidly proliferated its nuclear weapons capabilities. Will Americans giving up their civil rights prevent that proliferation? Will it prevent China in--clearly, they are a threat to the free world with their seeking global hegemony, but do Americans have to give up their civil rights?

It goes on to talk about Afghanistan falling to the Taliban, ISIS revived, Houthi terrorists putting our troops under attack, Israeli men, women, and children slaughtered by Hamas. Will Americans giving up their civil rights prevent those things from happening?

It won't.

These words ring very hollow by the current FBI director when he is targeting Americans, when we have seen the leadership of our FBI target Americans. We have a powerful word in the English language, and I think it is one of the most beautiful words out there. It is liberty.

And encapsulated in that liberty is freedom, and the Founders used liberty as often as they used the term ``freedom.'' Liberty encapsulates freedom, but it also says you have to be accountable for that freedom. There are those in our government who have chosen not to be accountable. This great system we have allows us to provide that accountability, and that is what we are here to do today is to provide that accountability for those intelligence agencies.

The choice is simple before us today. We can protect the powerful with their Praetorian guard here in Washington, D.C., or do we protect the American people with the most powerful document created in the history of humankind, the Constitution?

Today, Mr. Speaker, I will be choosing the people and the Constitution.