Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership and giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, while it is not surprising that Congress' budget process is a total and utter failure, the good news is that there are solutions to cut down on excessive spending, balance our budget, and prevent the world's largest economy from self-destructing.

The American people know this. When you go back home and talk to the American people, they know what is going on here is wrong. They know that the family checkbook only goes so far. Choices have to be made. They know the American family's checkbook out here in Washington, D.C., should live under the same constraints.

The solution is not to propose a budget with the highest sustained levels of spending since World War II, as President Biden has done, or to spend taxpayers' dollars at a faster pace than at any point in history, as Congress has done the past 2 years. The solution is to stop spending like there is no tomorrow and be fiscally responsible.

With inflation at a 40-year high, gas prices shattering new records, and home prices surging, as the gentleman from Oklahoma said, I believe every effort must be made to rein in wasteful Washington spending and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being thrown down the drain.

Simply put, instead of spending money as fast as Joe Biden leaves for a Delaware vacation, it is time for fiscal responsibility in Washington. This includes implementing good-government reforms, like balancing our budget for the first time in over 20 years, which this budget by the RSC does.

I thank the chairman for including a piece of legislation that I introduced called the Agriculture Civil Rights and Equality Act, ACRE.

You might remember last year, Democrats in the American Rescue Plan provided billions in debt relief assistance to some farmers, while excluding others, based entirely on the color of their skin. That is detestable. That is un-American.

The ACRE Act will ensure that this never happens again by explicitly barring the USDA from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any person, in whole or in part, based on race. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to finance unfair, unconstitutional racial quota systems.

One of the main reasons I ran for this office is the same reason that I ran in 2010. In Wisconsin, we had a $3 billion deficit. We all remember, after the 2008 election, the policies that were put in place in the ensuing 2 years were disastrous for America. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The same thing is a rewind from back in that period of time.

I told my constituents we can fix the budget problems we had in Wisconsin. Some people said: Yeah, we hear that all the time. I said: You give us a decade, and we will get it done. We did exactly that.

Over the three terms that I sat on the budget writing committee in the State of Wisconsin, if you look at where their budget is now as a result of the little bit of work that I contributed to, along with my colleagues in the State legislature, we fixed those budget problems in Wisconsin. Now there is the largest rainy day fund in the history of Wisconsin. This past budget returned $2 billion to the taxpayers of the State. That is fiscal responsibility.

We can do the same here in Washington, D.C., but it is going to require the will to do it. We can do it over the next decade, as the chairman said. We get to balance in 7 years here. This is what the American people are looking for. They want us to be fiscally responsible because it will lead to more opportunity and prosperity here in America and ensure American liberty for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I urge both Democrats and Republicans to say ``yes'' to the

RSC budget, because it is good for America.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Regrettably, I will not be able to support this bill either. It is another $1.4 billion of mandatory spending--no offsets, no sunset. This is another case of the runaway Biden inflation train gaining speed. The only question at this point to the American people is how spectacular the crack-up is going to be, and the American people know that.

When I go out and talk to them, I hear about two things: energy prices and inflation.

Well, here we have got another $1.4 billion that are going to be poured into the tinderbox of the train to send it careening down the rails even faster. The only question is how spectacular the crack-up is going to be. Unfortunately, the American people are going to suffer the consequences.

The author of this bill just said that she would like to take some species off the endangered species list. There is one that can come off right now--right now--that has recovered.

Representative Boebert and I proposed an amendment to de-list the gray wolf. It has recovered. The gray wolf is in the ESA ``Hotel California.'' They can enter, but they never leave.

Twenty-five wildlife scientists from the upper Midwest a decade ago said, you need to de-list the wolf. We put together an amendment for this bill, and it was not considered.

Terribly unfortunate, because it is time for the Endangered Species Act to either be used properly and de-list a species like the gray wolf that is fully recovered, according to wildlife scientists, or else the ESA itself has to be reformed.

Those scientists, when you read their document that they wrote, specifically said, the Endangered Species Act is endangered because it is not being used properly.

Also, there is no language in this bill that prohibits funds from going to acquiring new Federal lands. Think about it this way: If you have a neighbor that doesn't repair their roof, it is leaking into their house, and they say we are going to go buy that lot next door. That, in effect, is what this bill will allow the Federal Government to do.

We are seeing across America, including in my district, that the Federal Government is not taking care of their lands appropriately. The Federal Government is becoming America's slumlord.

This bill has grant programs that even the most extreme environmental groups can apply for. Every time some taxpayer-funded, so-called corporate green group runs an ad, and you are going to see a lot of them here in 2022, claiming the sky is falling, just remember: You may have paid for it, and you may pay twice because you will get hit with inflation as a result of spending that the American people cannot afford.

I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to be able to testify on this bill. Unfortunately, I will not be able to support it, and I hope in the future that we can do better.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for saying it quite well. The least we can do here is make sure that with these funds we try to have some oversight and responsibility in terms of how they are going to be spent. I thank the author for including this amendment in the bill.

If there is no pay-for, then there must be some measure of accountability for the expenditure of these funds ensuring the Department of the Interior Inspector General's office has the proper resources to monitor this spending.

Unfortunately, the bill in its current form has no sunset on the mandatory spending of $1.4 billion, so I thank the gentlewoman for including this in the package.

Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose the previous question so that the House can consider the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act.

Madam Speaker, it is no secret that crime is out of control in this country. Annual homicide records have been broken in at least a dozen major cities. Brazen smash-and-grab robberies in broad daylight are a daily occurrence. Killing, severe beatings, armed robberies, carjackings, sexual assaults, arson, and looting have become a common feature on the evening news.

Yet, rogue prosecutors in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, and Milwaukee continue to release predators from custody almost as fast as the police can arrest them.

The use of no-cash bail policies, plea bargains, and a complete refusal to put dangerous repeat offenders behind bars has demoralized our police and endangered our communities, and America's most iconic cities resemble a Third World country.

I will give you an example in my home State. In Milwaukee County, we witnessed back at Christmas a massacre at the Waukesha County Christmas Parade, 6 people dead, 60 injured. How? With a guy that had a rap sheet that had felonies, misdemeanors, statutory rape, resisting arrest, and strangulation, and he was out on $1,000 bail.

Here is the worst part, though: That district attorney, John Chisholm in Milwaukee County, here is what he said years ago about his philosophy. ``Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who is going to go out and kill somebody? You bet. Guaranteed. It is guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.''

That is what we have for district attorneys around the United States.

Americans are sick and tired of the lawlessness, and they are demanding accountability.

Madam Speaker, each year, jurisdictions across the United States benefit from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides funding to States, Tribes, and local governments to support a range of justice-related programs.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule, calling for immediate consideration of the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. It would, among other things, mandate that district attorneys report to Congress on how often they follow through, holding criminals charged with violent

crimes, like murder, rape, arson, crimes involving illegal guns, and motor vehicle theft accountable.

They would also be required to disclose how often they prosecute the initial charges, how often they secure convictions, whether or not those charged were already on probation or parole, and how many offenders were released without bail.

Madam Speaker, the American people need to know if the people they have entrusted to keep their neighborhoods safe are actually using their tax dollars to finance this crime wave.

It is time to end the policy of underwriting progressive policies that endanger the lives and livelihoods of decent, hardworking Americans, and that starts with transparency.

I urge my colleagues to stand with us for safer communities and oppose the previous question.

Madam Speaker, not one word from our colleagues when it comes to the crime waves in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

To do so would be to criticize their own soft-on-crime policies. It has been going on for a decade now. They hope Americans ignore the inconvenient truth. Criminals don't get background checks, and they don't fear laws because rogue prosecutors financed by progressive dark money groups don't enforce our laws.

These criminal strongholds and Washington, D.C., have one thing in common: They are run by Democrats who refuse to enforce our laws.

This administration, responsible for a 40-year inflation high, erasing our border, and a shrinking economy, will say anything to distract from their own failures. Jimmy Carter says thank you for making the seventies look good.

Week after week, we hear about violent criminals revictimizing communities without being held accountable. The people furthering these policies and making our communities less safe are the same people who are fervently arguing to disarm Americans and defund the police. They are the same people weaponizing the FBI against their political opponents and the same people who want to repeal the Second Amendment. I wish they would just tell the American people the truth instead of deploying Trojan horses.

Whether it is rifle bans, 9-mm bans, Federal red flag laws, one thing is certain: They will not change the outcomes for the people in those cities.

As some Members of this body have said in the last few weeks: This is just the beginning. We will not stop.

They will continue to erode our rights because they believe in a nanny-state government, not a government of the people.

What Americans need is the enforcement of our laws holding criminals accountable and protecting our constitutional rights.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, Kamala who? In all seriousness, it is unfortunate that Vice President Harris has not fulfilled her mission to be the border czar. It is awful.

Did you see the news today in regard to the free phones that the White House Press Secretary talked about today, free phones for migrants?

Think about it. I was down in Panama almost a year ago and went to the Darien Gap. Who did I see? IOM, the International Organization for Migration. Where do they get their money? They get a lot of their money from the United Nations. Who puts the most money into the United Nations? Yes, Americans do.

Back home on the farm, we used to refer to this as--my colleague from Texas just said how many, how many? I would say to you also: How much?

We used to refer to it as eating your seed corn. Americans pay an international organization to send debit cards for these people to take themselves up the Panama pipeline all the way to the southern border. Then you pay for a bus ride to get them to the airport. Then you pay for an airline ride: Philadelphia, Baltimore, wherever. They are going around the country.

Then you pay for the education, the free education they are going to get.

You pay for the healthcare.

That is what you Americans are paying for every single day for over 2 million people, and it is about to get worse.

To highlight how it is going to get worse and how obtuse this side of the aisle is, we are sitting in the Committee on the Judiciary today creating another loophole in the Virgin Islands. There is another loophole that is being created for visa waiver privileges, something that we saw in the Mariana Islands that was created about a decade ago under the Obama administration where they allowed parole for people to be able to come in, Chinese nationals.

There were maybe, like, eight births that were being done on those islands prior to this change that was quietly made in the law. It accelerated to--there were, like, 600 births of Chinese nationals that happened in the Mariana Islands as a result of this loophole.

If you want to see the reporting on it, The Wall Street Journal did an excellent job. It was one of our intelligence agencies in 2017 that really dug into this.

Yes, here is this huge loophole, and they want to now create it in the Virgin Islands. That is what we are voting on tonight in the Committee on the Judiciary.

They want to create another loophole, and they are, like, oh, it will only be a few people. Do the American people believe that?

Mr. Speaker, every State is a border State, including my State of Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, so if I may extend my point a little bit. Think about it. Tonight, we are debating, in the Judiciary Committee, creating another loophole. It shows how unserious they are, how they do not have the interests of the American people at hand. They want to create another loophole, and this one is in the Virgin Islands, not in the South Pacific.

People are going to be able to be funneled in here by the thousands as a result of that loophole--just another way to bring people into this country to compete against hardworking Americans who have to not only try to make their way up the scale, the economic ladder here in America, but now, with inflation, they have to fight that, too.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman could lead the way. He could lead the way.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the MORE legislation both for what it does and what it does not do.

For starters, the bill authorizes the collection of detailed demographic information on marijuana-sector employees, including their race and ethnicity, for a massive, publicly accessible government database. This is another attempt by Democrats to promote their destructive identity politics agenda and lay the groundwork for a rigid quota system that picks winners and losers based on skin color.

The database will also put more sensitive personal data at risk and open the door to mischief by Federal bureaucrats who have repeatedly weaponized access to Americans' private information to promote a partisan political agenda. Hello IRS.

I am also disappointed that the majority refused to allow votes on two commonsense amendments I proposed. The first would have required child-resistant packaging and a Surgeon General's warning label detailing the dangers these products pose to pregnant women and their unborn babies. Investigative reports have revealed multiple instances of pot shop clerks recommending marijuana to expectant mothers as safe, despite well-documented risks. Few, if any, of these retail clerks have any medical training and should stick to dispensing pot, not prenatal advice.

The second would have banned the use of ingredients or flavor additives in marijuana-infused products such as fruit, chocolate, vanilla, or candy. For years, we have been told by many on the other side that such flavors appeal to children and should be banned from tobacco products. If this standard is good enough for JUUL and Puff Bar, shouldn't it also apply to Cheech and Chong?

Mr. Speaker, this legislation will make an already complicated situation worse. I ask for a ``no'' vote on the rule and a ``no'' vote on the bill.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Madam Speaker. I just want to gently correct my colleague from North Carolina when he cited 8 percent inflation. On an annualized basis, we are seeing it being measured at 10 percent here. I can understand the Representative from Tennessee's sensitivity toward Bidenflation.

Today, we are here because the Democrats want to pass legislation that insults the intelligence of Americans. According to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the only people sophisticated enough to enter into arbitration agreements are unions, so they have exempted them from this bill. Convenient.

This legislation prohibits predispute arbitration agreements, which are a fair, efficient, and effective way for consumers, workers, and businesses to settle disputes without costly and time-consuming litigation that mainly benefits the trial bar. This bill will also deprive Americans of an effective legal option, while costing them more time and money.

Predispute arbitration agreements exist in many employment and consumer contracts today and are enforced like any other kind of contract. Arbitration is generally fair, often leads to better outcomes for workers, and does not keep claimants from simultaneously alerting the world to bad actors. Those agreements create a win-win situation for parties to contract in advance on a process for resolving future disputes.

Courts, accordingly, uphold and enforce lawful agreements to arbitrate when disputes arise between parties, an approach consistent with the fundamental principle that arbitration is a matter of contract. This policy of individuals being free to contract has arguably long been a feature of American law. Existing law also permits courts to invalidate agreements under generally applicable contract defenses, such as fraud or duress.

Some will argue that arbitration requires confidentiality. This is not true. The parties to the agreement always have a right to disclose details of the proceeding unless they have a separate confidentiality agreement. Nor does current law typically preclude a party from disclosing information obtained in the arbitration process or any resulting award. Arbitration is usually less expensive and faster than litigation.

It normally minimizes hostility, is less disruptive of ongoing and future business dealings, and is often more flexible. This legislation does not favor the American consumer. The only ones favored are the unions and the trial bar. This is not right for Americans, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this un-fair act.

Madam Speaker, 2 weeks ago, we were here and heard about how President Biden was going to use every tool at his disposal, every tool, to combat skyrocketing energy costs.

Now, this is the same administration that told us the border was secure. That was about a year ago, a little less than a year ago. The border was secure. And we just saw in the last month, once again, record numbers of people coming in illegally to our country across the southern border.

Of course, as the gentleman from Louisiana just said, inflation was ``transitory,'' and we are starting to hear that his chief economic adviser is saying maybe it is not so transitory. We are seeing record numbers now, this month, in regard to inflation.

Well, it all started January 20, 2021, with the shutdown of the Keystone pipeline and all the other actions that were taken to limit production here in America.

We saw what is turning out to be a foreign policy disaster, the okay of the Nord Stream pipeline that is delivering natural gas to Western Europe, something the previous administration would never do.

This is all part of the green fantasy here in America that has become America's nightmare.

Back home in my district, it is $2.85 a gallon to heat your home with propane right now. Propane is used by about a third of the homeowners in the district that I live in. They paid $1.50 in August 2021. They paid $0.80 a gallon in August 2020. That is what they are facing.

President Biden came to my district right after the State of the Union speech, came to Superior, Wisconsin. Once again, we were anxious to hear how he is going to use every tool, every tool possible, to provide energy for America.

But we didn't hear a thing about rerouting the pipeline through northern Wisconsin that is held up because a permit is not issued by the Governor of Wisconsin and his Department of Natural Resources.

We didn't hear a single thing about Line 5 that goes through the Straits of Mackinac--the Governor of Michigan shut down that permit last year--a major throughput to Canada and the entire Midwest.

We didn't hear a word about rebuilding the refinery in Superior, which we hope is complete soon. He was there on an infrastructure tour. That refinery produces all kinds of asphalt. Don't you think that would be a really good time--infrastructure, asphalt--to talk about rebuilding that refinery?

Finally, he didn't say a thing about a natural gas plant that is proposed for Superior, Wisconsin, nearly a billion-dollar investment to produce clean electricity with natural gas.

We didn't hear a word about producing more fertilizer for those farmers to grow our crops. We didn't hear a word about that.

This President does not understand security. Job security, thousands of jobs--two of the major pipeline manufacturers in the United States are right in Wisconsin. We didn't hear a thing about economic security, the inflation that is, in part, a result of these increased energy costs. We didn't hear a thing about national security, and that is what is at stake.

The Biden administration has let us down on all three fronts, job security, economic security, and national security.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of one of Minocqua, Wisconsin's, very own, Kevin Bolger, who is headed to the 2022 Winter Olympics. He started skiing in the third grade after following in the footsteps of his older brother. By the way, this family has been a cornerstone of the community in Minocqua, Wisconsin, for over 100 years.

It was clear from a young age that Kevin was a natural, and his interest in the sport continued to grow over the years.

His journey to the Olympics isn't like most of his teammates. After graduating from high school, he opted out

of going straight to college. Instead, Kevin moved to Idaho and joined the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation where they had a program for kids taking a gap year. There he met and worked with his current ski coach for 2 years before applying to the University of Utah. He went to the University of Utah for 4 years, winning a national title his senior year.

After 3 years on Team USA, he made his first Olympic cut earlier this year and will be headed to Beijing as a first-time Olympian.

Congratulations, Kevin Bolger, and best of luck.

Madam Speaker, there has been a lot of rhetoric today about creating American jobs and having American businesses thrive. Let's read something that was slipped into this bill, a prohibition: No person may possess, acquire, receive, transport, offer for sale, sell, or purchase any American mink.

What a sneak attack on people who create jobs and create goods for America. These people are good stewards, good stewards of the land, and they are also terrific at animal husbandry.

This is a sneak attack on them, trying to drive them out of business.

There is one question here: When is the hostility to the producers of America--the people who grow our food, clothe our people, and produce our energy--going to end by the other side of the aisle?

Madam Speaker, I am assuming this mike is live. Is that correct? It is, okay. Thank you very much and thank you for sitting in the Chair tonight. We appreciate you being here during this period of time.

I think the person that just appeared before us said he does not know what Republicans stand for. Republicans stand for secure borders. We stand for a strong national security. We stand for an America that we represent Americans first, and that is what we stand for here tonight.

Madam Speaker, the Biden administration has turned the United States Government, our government, whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or any other affiliation, into the largest human trafficking operation in the history of the world. And it is so sad to see that happen. It doesn't have to be that way.

Let's go back to the January 20, just a little over a year ago. What happened?

Remain in Mexico was ended. Border wall construction was ended. Catch-and-release was initiated. And that is exactly what we have seen in our country now over the last year.

I am going to share my story, if I may, tonight. I have been here less than 2 years. The first trip that I took was down to the Arizona border in June of 2020. I saw the successes down there. I saw local units of government working with State and Federal Government to secure our borders, to make sure that those that chose to come into our country legally, they would get in line, and they would go through the process. It was under control. I saw that border wall construction down in Arizona.

Fast forward to just a little less than a year ago, April of 2021. I go down to the Rio Grande, out of control. And from what I understand, it is even worse now than April of 2021.

From there, I went down to Panama at the behest of the Border Patrol saying, You should see that this is not just about Mexico, this is not just about the Northern Triangle. There are people coming from all over the world.

So I went down to the Darien Gap in Panama at the end of May 2021, and what I saw was breathtaking. People coming out of the jungle, having to be wheelbarrowed to the medical tent. Hearing stories of the estimates that 10 percent of the people that tried to get through that jungle--some of the most dense jungle you will find on all of the face of the Earth--10 percent of the people were dying as a result of the actions that a President took on January 20, 2021.

The border is open. That was the message to those people. And it has wreaked havoc on people's lives that thought, If I can just make it to America. Many of them have not done that.

And as the chairman said, we have got an organization that is getting fully funded by the United Nations. What?

We put 25 percent of the money into the United Nations?

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, or sometimes it goes by OIM, I saw them at the Rio Grande. I saw them at the Darien Gap. I saw them at Fort McCoy when the Afghan evacuees came to our country. IOM, every step of the way, giving people remittances, giving them debit cards, being funded by you and me, the American public.

We are funding those people coming here to the United States of America at the behest of an organization that believes in open borders and does not believe in the sovereignty not just of the United States, but of any country on the face of this Earth.

It is time for our Committee on the Judiciary, Chairman Nadler, to have hearings about what this organization is all about. Now, I am not going to hold my breath expecting that to happen, but that is what should happen. And if the American people want to know the truth, you are going to have to take action in this election year of 2022, if you want this to change. Because it is evident by the Secretary, as designated by President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, he is going to do nothing about it.

We heard it in the video that we saw recently, when the Border Patrol agents proudly stood up and they said, You are the reason, Secretary Mayorkas, for this problem, and you could stop it now.

So here is what we stand for--to the gentleman that was here earlier--here is what we stand for:

We stand for legal immigration. I think about members of my family, my extended family, that came into this country recently, legally. Did it the right way; paid the money. And they didn't pay the money to a cartel. They paid it to the United States Government to do it the right way. That is

what we stand for as legal immigration.

We stand for stopping the flow of drugs that are killing Americans in record numbers.

We stand for respecting our borders. We stand with our Border Patrol and all those people that are in security that just want to make sure that people come into our country legally.

I stand for an America that is great. I stand with America first.

And if the people of the United States of America want to bring this under control, this scourge that has hit our country as a result of the actions of a President on January 20, 2021, you need to stand with us in November of 2022.

Mr. Speaker, in a desperate attempt to maintain their waning grip on power, the majority is attempting to hijack a bill related to NASA in order to promote voter fraud and invalidate State voter ID laws.

But that is not all. The Democrats want to institutionalize ballot harvesting schemes, mandate the use of unverifiable mail ballots, and pour public dollars into the campaign coffers of wealthy politicians.

You heard that right, Mr. and Mrs. America. Bidenflation skyrockets while Democrats are going to raid the Treasury to pay for their political ads. But that is just the beginning.

A few days ago, New York City adopted a policy allowing noncitizens to vote, effectively legalizing foreign election interference. You can bet this will stretch to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Madison. In that respect, perhaps it is fitting that the majority has chosen a NASA bill to advance their cynical agenda and pave the way for alien voting.

This is one giant leap backward for American election integrity, and if the majority actually thinks this bill is the solution to what is ailing America, Houston, we have a problem.

Madam Speaker, I want to say thank you to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for a few minutes here. I appreciate it.

Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose the previous question and in support of the Reopen Schools Act. We are hearing today that, in terms of priorities here, what could be more important than schools and getting our schools open with the damage that has been done over the last couple years?

During the early days of the pandemic many schools across the country were shuttered. But now some 2 years in, I believe we have the tools and resources to keep our schools open--something we all know is in the best interest of our kids.

Since March of 2020, the Federal Government has provided $190 billion in pandemic aid to schools to upgrade their mitigation systems and get kids back in the classrooms safely. Unfortunately, last week the teachers union in Chicago decided to walk out on their students. The standoff has kept 340,000 students--the third largest school system in the United States--out of the classroom. Worryingly, we are now seeing other teachers unions across the country looking to follow their lead and pushing for a return to remote learning.

So our colleague across the aisle here asked: What are we railing against?

Aren't we in support of local control?

Of course we are. But what we are seeing in the State of Wisconsin now is that the Department of Health Services, at the behest of the Governor, is pushing for more restrictions. A letter just went out today to all school districts across the State of Wisconsin: You should be putting more restrictions in place.

It is very similar to what the Centers for Disease Control has done. It is extremely hard for someone at the local level to simply stand up against this onslaught of regulations and suggestions that you have to do this otherwise children are going to be damaged.

How are you going to stand up against that when you are just a small, local school district?

Even the Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, took a stand by saying that students have suffered enough and schools should stay open. I agree.

Last year's school closures were extremely hard on parents and students leading to significant learning loss. That is a scenario we cannot afford to repeat this academic year. We owe it to

our kids to get back to in-person instruction. H.R. 682 ensures that the additional $190 billion in pandemic aid actually goes towards what it was intended: getting kids back in the classroom.

Madam Speaker, I just want to close by saying this: I remember back in April of 2020, a couple weeks into the shutdowns and lockdowns, we knew whom this was going to affect the most, and we knew that children are at very low risk.

In fact, the head of the CDC at that time, Dr. Redfield, said that kids should be back in school. They are at less risk than the cold and flu with COVID. Kids should be back in school.

Madam Speaker, I urge defeat of the previous question so we can consider this critical piece of legislation put forward by the gentlewoman from Iowa.

Madam Speaker, I thank so much Representative Bergman for yielding. It is a great pleasure to be a neighbor to the wonderful Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Veterans Day has been celebrated under different names since World War I, but the premise remains the same: We pause to honor the men and women who have selflessly served our Nation and have kept us free.

We honor their love of country, their patriotism, and their willingness to sacrifice for our greater good. Our country has faced many challenges in the last 100-plus years. From Belleau Woods to Normandy to the global war on terror, every time, our warriors have answered the Nation's calls.

This year, as we close the chapter on Afghanistan, we are again reminded of the sacrifices they have made, the kindness in their hearts, and their dedication to the mission.

This Veterans Day, reflect on the gift they have given us, respect their service, and thank them for their sacrifice. Because of them, we live in the greatest Nation on Earth.

On behalf of my constituents, thank you, and may God bless all of you.