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11Congressional Earmarks, Limited Tax Benefits, or Limited Tariff Benefits
Daily Digest
Public Bills and Resolutions Introduced
41 public bills, H.R. 6730- 6770; and 1 resolution, H. Res. 952, were introduced.
Pages H5940-42
Report Filed
A report was filed today as follows: H. Res. 951, providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4776) to amend the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to clarify ambiguous provisions and facilitate a more efficient, effective, and timely environmental review process; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1366) to provide for the location of multiple hardrock mining mill sites, to establish the Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 845) to require the Secretary of the Interior to reissue regulations removing the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife under the Endangered Species Act of 1973; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3616) to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review regulations that may affect the reliable operation of the bulk-power system; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3632) to amend the Federal Power Act to adjust the requirements for orders, rules, and regulations relating to furnishing adequate service, to require owners or operators of generating facilities to provide notice of planned retirements of certain electric generating units, and for other purposes; and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4371) to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children (H. Rept. 119-410).
Page H5940
Speaker
Read a letter from the Speaker wherein he appointed Representative Baumgartner to act as Speaker pro tempore for today.
Page H5901
Recess
The House recessed at 11:27 a.m. and reconvened at 12 p.m.
Page H5911
Recess
The House recessed at 1:07 p.m. and reconvened at 1:30 p.m.
Page H5919
Kayla Hamilton Act
The House passed H.R. 4371, to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children, by a yea-and- nay vote of 225 yeas to 201 nays, Roll No. 340.
Pages H5921-27, H5933-34
Agreed to amend the title so as to read
``To amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children.''.
Page H5934
Rejected the Stansbury motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on the Judiciary by a yea-and-nay vote of 208 yeas to 218 nays, Roll No. 339.
Page H5933
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted.
Page H5921
H. Res. 951, the rule providing for consideration of the bills (H.R. 4776), (H.R. 1366), (H.R. 845), (H.R. 3616), (H.R. 3632), and (H.R. 4371) was agreed to by a recorded vote of 215 ayes to 209 noes, Roll No. 338, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 215 yeas to 207 nays, Roll No. 337.
Pages H5912-19, H5919-21
Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025
The House passed H.R. 3632, to amend the Federal Power Act to adjust the requirements for orders, rules, and regulations relating to furnishing adequate service, to require owners or operators of generating facilities to provide notice of planned retirements of certain electric generating units, by a yea- and-nay vote of 222 yeas to 202 nays, Roll No. 342.
Pages H5927-33, H5934-36
Rejected the Scholten motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on Energy and Commerce by a yea-and-nay vote of 207 yeas to 218 nays, Roll No. 341.
Pages H5934-35
H. Res. 951, the rule providing for consideration of the bills H.R. 4776), (H.R. 1366), (H.R. 845), (H.R. 3616), (H.R. 3632), and (H.R. 4371) was agreed to by a recorded vote of 215 ayes to 209 noes, Roll No. 338, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 215 yeas to 207 nays, Roll No. 337.
Pages H5912-19, H5919-21
Meeting Hour
Agreed by unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow, December 17th.
Page H5936
Order of Business
Agreed by unanimous consent that it be in order at any time to consider House Concurrent Resolutions 61 and 64 in the House if called up by the chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or his designee; that each such concurrent resolution be considered as read; and that the previous question be considered as ordered on each such concurrent resolution to adoption without intervening motion except for: 1) with respect to House Concurrent Resolution 61, one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or their respective designees; and 2) with respect to House Concurrent Resolution 64, one hour of debate equally divided among and controlled by Representative Mast, Representative Meeks, and Representative McGovern or their respective designees.
Page H5936
Senate Referrals
S. 550 was held at the desk. S. 748 was held at the desk. S. 1510 was held at the desk.
Page H5912
Senate Message
Message received from the Senate appears on page H5912. Quorum Calls--Votes: Five yea-and-nay votes and one recorded vote developed during the proceedings of today and appear on pages H5919-20, H5920, H5933, H5934, H5934-35, and H5935. Adjournment: The House met at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 5:36 p.m.
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 135 of 172 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Morning-Hour Debate
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 3, 2025, the Chair will now recognize Members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning-hour debate.
The Chair will alternate recognition between the parties, with time equally allocated between the parties and each Member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to 5 minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to invite my colleagues to join me in strengthening two of our Nation's key founding principles: checks and balances and the rule of law.
Join me in uplifting the idea that every person and institution within a government is subject to the same set of rules: rules established by, reviewed by, and enforced by three coequal branches of government. Join me because these principles are under assault.
Mr. Speaker, none of us should accept it as normal practice that a President, any President, use their executive pardon power to absolve convicted drug kingpins, those found guilty of violently attacking law enforcement officers, and even a money laundering crypto magnate with ties to the President's family business. Yet, this is exactly what President Trump has done.
On his first day back in office, President Trump pardoned 1,500 people involved in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Since then, he has pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 90 others.
Just recently, he added former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez to that list. Hernandez was serving a 45-year prison sentence for conspiring to smuggle more than 400 tons, or 4.5 billion doses, of cocaine into the U.S. Hernandez was also convicted of accepting bribes from violent drug cartel members to fuel his political career, shielding them from prosecution in exchange for their bribes.
Earlier this year, President Trump granted clemency to a drug dealer responsible for putting more than a thousand kilograms of cocaine onto Baltimore's streets. A Federal agent described the defendant as ``one of the largest cocaine and heroin dealers to be arrested by the DEA in recent history.''
President Trump is using the pardon power not to correct injustices but to absolve convicted criminals simply because he can. He has yet to offer a compelling reason for any of these clemency cases.
These abuses are especially pronounced under this administration, but they are certainly not unique to one party. Throughout history, Democratic and Republican Presidents have used clemency to reward allies and shield those close to them.
After the Civil War, President Johnson issued sweeping pardons for more than 13,000 former Confederates. President Clinton pardoned his half brother, who was also serving time for drug trafficking. President Biden pardoned his son, who was convicted on gun charges and had pleaded guilty to tax-related charges.
Some Presidents, including Presidents Trump and Biden, have issued preemptive pardons before prosecutors even had a chance to present their case in court and before the public had any opportunity to weigh the facts. It has to stop.
These abuses erode trust in our democratic system. They undermine the notion that all laws apply to all Americans. They lack the checks and balances envisioned by our Nation's Founders. They are now far too common and far too brazen. We must do something about it.
That is why I am introducing a straightforward constitutional amendment, one that adds balance and accountability to the pardon system by giving Congress the ability to review and overturn Presidential pardons and commutations.
Under my proposal, Members of Congress could petition for a review of pardons and overturn them with a two-thirds supermajority in the House and Senate. This amendment intentionally sets a fairly high standard. The goal is not to eliminate the President's pardon power but to encourage Presidents to think twice before issuing outrageous pardons. Should egregious cases persist, it gives Congress the ability to intervene.
As ethically questionable pardons have become increasingly common, it is no surprise that public trust in government is near an all-time low. According to the Partnership for Public Trust, only one in three Americans has confidence that their elected officials are acting in the public's best interest.
One way to improve public trust is to stop the most brazen abuses of clemency. No more get-out-of-jail-free cards for the wealthy and well- connected. The time to act is now.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in my efforts.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary effort that brought the Spirit of Georgia, a B-2 stealth bomber, back to operational flight after a serious incident more than 4 years ago.
During a hydraulic failure, the aircraft skidded along the runway and sustained major damage. Many questioned whether it would ever return to the skies. Instead of retiring the aircraft, airmen, engineers, and the B-2 program team came together with a goal to save it. Their work represented perseverance and belief in the mission.
The team removed the bomber from hazardous conditions, transported it for repair, and worked through design challenges and restoration steps. Their determination saved taxpayers millions and returned a strategic asset to service.
Mr. Speaker, on November 6, 2025, the Spirit of Georgia lifted off once again, proving what is possible when people work with purpose. This successful return is a tribute to American skill, teamwork, and resolve. The Spirit of Georgia lives on.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate two outstanding student athletes at Augusta University.
Elyse Autrey, a sophomore women's basketball guard from Fairfax, Virginia, has been named Georgia's Own Student-Athletes of the Month for November. Over four games last month, she averaged 16.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 3.3 assists. Her leadership helped Augusta secure a road win over number two Coker, among other strong performances.
On the men's side, senior golfer Stefan Jacobs, from Johannesburg, South Africa, earned the same honor. Jacobs turned in a stellar round at the Pearl at Kalauao Invitational, finishing third out of 108 golfers in a final round of 5-under par. His strong showing helped the Augusta squad place third in team standings, with a collective 7-under finish.
Mr. Speaker, these two represent the very best of Jaguar athletics: dedication, discipline, and excellence on the court and course. They prove that student athletes can achieve both athletically and academically while contributing pride to their school.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to recognize Elyse Autrey and Stefan Jacobs for their achievements and congratulate Augusta University for fostering such talent.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Tybee Island, which has just been named the number one winter fishing spot for 2026 according to FishingBooker.
FishingBooker created the top 10 ranking with factors such as winter fish activity and species variety. It also looked at popularity, tourism, and insights from locals. Tybee Island topped the list, even beating out larger cities such as Jacksonville, Fort Myers, and Tacoma.
Just east of Savannah, Tybee Island is a barrier island with relaxed charm, wide beaches, and scenic Atlantic coastline. With the cooler temperatures, redfish, black drum, and speckled trout make their way to shallow waters, creating plenty of opportunity for inshore anglers. Nearby, rocky structures attract sheepshead, a favorite for kids.
Tybee Island offers more than just fishing with an iconic lighthouse, local seafood, and scenic beaches. Even in the heart of winter, the island retains its coastal energy, inviting tourists and anglers to spend the season there.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Colleen Lindholz, a fellow pharmacist and the president of Kroger Health, the healthcare division of the Kroger Company. This year, Ms. Lindholz is celebrating 30 years of service with the company.
After joining Kroger as a pharmacist for the Cincinnati-Dayton division in 1995, she quickly rose through the ranks to lead Kroger's more than 2,200 pharmacies and 220 retail clinic locations across 35 States, including 334 pharmacies and 18 clinics in Georgia.
Ms. Lindholz is the lead architect of the company's efforts to integrate pharmacy, clinician, and dietician services into grocery offerings. She focuses on food as medicine, which Kroger Health defines as a dedicated, educated, and personalized approach to eating and enjoying food.
This initiative helps customers live healthier lives and prevents chronic diseases before they start.
In addition to her professional accomplishments on behalf of patient health, Ms. Lindholz is an active philanthropic leader. She gives back through leadership in many community organizations, including Easterseals Redwood, the American Heart Association-Greater Cincinnati, and the Joe Burrow Foundation, among others.
Mr. Speaker, from one pharmacist to another, I congratulate Ms. Lindholz on 30 years of bettering the health and well-being of Georgians and all Americans in the community Kroger serves.
Mr. Speaker, like many people on Sunday, I went to church. I went to church and prayed for the victims at my alma mater, Brown University.
Eleven kids were studying for their economics final exam and dreaming about going home to their families for the holidays when a gunman entered the room and started shooting. I prayed for the families and those who were shot and wounded, and I hope they all have a speedy recovery.
I also prayed for Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, who both lost their lives to the unimaginable, senseless shooting. They were cherished members of the Brown community and had years of life and bright futures ahead of them. In one moment, it was all taken.
I prayed for them on Sunday, and I will continue to pray for them, but it is not enough. It will never be enough. We have a problem with gun violence and mass shootings in this country.
Twenty-six years ago, at Columbine High School in Colorado, 13 people were shot dead and 20 others injured. Thirteen years ago, at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, 26 were fatally wounded. In 2018, 17 were killed and 18 were wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
These are just some of the more high-profile shootings over the last 26 years. There have been countless others at schools, movie theaters, parades, shopping centers, and even a concert in Las Vegas, where a family friend lost his daughter.
From 2000 to 2022, the United States has had over three times as many mass shootings as 16 other politically similar countries combined.
The one thing that has remained consistent during this time is that Congress has failed to act. Mass shooting after mass shooting, death after death, Congress has done nothing.
To my colleagues in Congress, I compel you to end this tragedy. As a practicing Catholic, I put my faith in God, but He is not going to solve this problem for us.
The prayers might make us feel good, but they are doing nothing to stop the scourge of gun violence threatening our communities. There is not going to be a miracle from Heaven that will end gun violence for us. We need to do it.
Mr. Speaker, I ask: Where is the outrage from my Republican colleagues? The President was outraged over the shooting and death of American soldiers in Syria this weekend, and he should be. My sympathies are with those American heroes who gave their lives for our country fighting terrorists, but all Donald Trump had to say about the Brown University shooting was: ``Things can happen.''
Mr. Speaker, really? Now is the time for action. It is what the American
Some of my Republican colleagues will argue that guns don't kill people. People kill people. Anyone who does this must have mental health issues.
This is all the more reason for the background checks and the red flag laws. We cannot continue to act like nothing is wrong in America. We have a problem with gun violence and mass shootings in our country, and Congress must finally act.
Will enacting these laws eliminate mass shootings, gun violence, or suicides completely? No, but commonsense gun laws like this will make a difference, and it is a start.
This past weekend was one of the worst that I can remember. I spoke about the Brown University shooting and mentioned the soldiers in Syria. We also lost a great American and artist in Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, this past weekend due to an act of violence.
Mr. Speaker, I must say I was appalled by the President's response to his death. It was nothing more than shameful and disrespectful and unbecoming of the person who is supposed to be the leader of our country.
I also send my condolences to the Australian people who suffered through their own mass shooting this past weekend, a mass shooting that was a hate crime that targeted the Jewish community in Australia with 15 people dead, including a 10-year-old girl and a Holocaust survivor.
Fortunately, in Australia, they are already talking about how they can change things to prevent this from happening again. I can only hope there will be similar action in our own country and Congress will finally act. If history proves us right, I very much doubt it.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the President.
Mr. Speaker, as we say in west Texas: ``Sun's up. Guns up.'' Our Texas Tech Red Raiders have gone through this football season, guns ablazing, and have taken the Big 12 by storm. They posted a historic 11-win regular season with an average victory margin of more than 35 points and their best year since 2008.
Now, after securing their outright Big 12 championship, the Red Raiders are knocking on the door of their first-ever national championship.
I congratulate Coach Joey McGuire, his tremendous staff, and the outstanding student athletes at Texas Tech, all of whom represent the spirit of west Texas: tenacious, relentless, and 100 percent class and character.
Mr. Speaker, Texas Tech, I would argue, is America's team. It is a Main Street university in middle America made up of mostly kids from working families. It is a heartland culture that reflects our Nation's traditional faith and family values.
Like our pioneering fathers who braved the harsh elements to settle the Great Plains of west Texas, Red Raiders know how to work, how to fight, and never quit. They don't expect anybody to give them anything. They don't waste time complaining about being underrated or underestimated.
They know that respect is earned and not given. They know it is not about pleasing the crowd or the pundits. It is about giving their best to each other, to themselves, and to their university that they love.
I am proud to be a Red Raider. I am honored to represent Texas Tech in Congress. I am fired up for the country to know more about west Texas, the food, fuel, fiber, and football capital of the world.
Mr. Speaker, as for me and my house, we will be in Miami on New Year's Day with a lot of proud and rowdy Red Raiders cheering on America's team to win it all.
Guns up. Go, Red Raiders. Let's win that national championship.
Mr. Speaker, this Chamber will soon be empty as Members leave for the holiday without having taken action to aid Ukraine, our friend, our ally, and a courageous people who want to be free.
The trenches in Donbas will not be empty, however. Ukrainian medic stations and hospitals will not be empty. The air-raid shelters beneath Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv will not be empty.
Mr. Speaker, this administration is sleepwalking toward the edge of an abyss that will be difficult to escape. Neville Chamberlain once did the same. He returned from Munich and hoisted a piece of paper above his head that bore his signature and that of Adolf Hitler.
Without consulting Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain traded a fifth of its territory in exchange for Hitler's word that he would not invade. Chamberlain said that it would secure peace with honor, a peace for our time. Within 5 months, the Nazis occupied every square inch of Czechoslovakia. Within a year, they had added Poland. Within 2 years, German bombs were falling in London.
Just a few days after Chamberlain brandished Czechoslovakia's death warrant, Winston Churchill said: ``The German dictator, instead of snatching the victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course.''
Mr. Speaker, in that case, Hitler was the dictator. In our case, it is Putin.
Another dictator now hungers for his next course. Vladimir Putin did not stop with his invasion of Georgia or his campaign to separate Transnistria from Moldova. He did not stop with his 2014 annexation of Crimea, though perhaps he would have if America and the United Kingdom honored the Budapest Memorandum.
It is foolish and dangerous to think he will stop at the Donbas. The Russian bear is about to take its next bite, and Donald Trump is setting the table. Trump, Witkoff, Hegseth, Vance, and Rubio have done everything to appease Putin, short of putting on a Russian uniform.
Their 28-point peace plan last month was a Russian menu. What concessions did Trump demand from Ukraine? He demanded it forfeit a fifth of its territory--including the land that Russia does not occupy--to its invader; that it cap the size of its military; and that it forego its right to join NATO, which I believe is the only measure that can truly guarantee Ukraine's security.
What has he demanded from Russia in exchange? Nada, zip, nothing. He has demanded no economic reparations for Ukraine, no requirement that Russia return the Ukrainian children it abducted, and no accountability for the war crimes Putin has committed. He has asked for Putin's promise not to invade again, one he has yet to make and one he would never keep.
This administration acts as though we have no leverage in this situation, as though NATO's $1.8 trillion defense expenditures, 3.5 million troops, and combined GDP of $54 trillion mean nothing.
America is not impotent, nor is NATO, nor is the West in this fight against fascism, and neither is this Congress. Over 300 of us in every one of 12 votes has cast its vote for Ukraine; the majority of Republicans on all but one of those votes.
We only need three more Republicans to sign onto the bipartisan discharge petition Ranking Member Meeks and I put forward to bring the Ukraine Support Act to the floor for a vote. That legislation would undermine Russia's war machine and give Ukraine the support it needs to win this fight actually and psychologically.
Mr. Speaker, this House has taken twelve votes on past bills supporting Ukraine. An average of 80 percent of our Members have voted for every one of those. Yet we stand silent. We have not acted. We cannot build ``Peace with Honor'' on a promise from Putin. We can only achieve peace by awakening to our own power and to our own influence.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues, each of them who has supported Ukraine continuously in the past on almost every vote, to sign the discharge petition now. Let us not go home silent in the face of tyranny.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the Christmas spirit in eastern Washington.
As a boy, I remember Christmastime in eastern Washington, sledding in my boyhood home of Colton, Washington, going on shopping trips with the family to Toys ``R'' Us in Spokane, and perhaps stopping off to go sledding in Manito Park or visiting Riverfront Park. Indeed, it is the best of America.
That spirit of Christmas continues in Spokane and in eastern Washington with its spirit of generosity and service. This year, Spokane has been selected as one of just 126 cities worldwide to host the Light the World Giving Machine, innovative vending machines in reverse that will allow families to purchase meals, warm clothing, hygiene items, or even chickens for neighbors in need here at home and around the globe.
From December 12 through January 12, visitors at Spokane Valley Mall can, with just a few taps, direct every dollar of their donations to trusted local charities like Second Harvest and global charities like CARE. This is eastern Washington at its best, people coming together to serve, to give, and to care for one another.
Since their launch in 2017, the Giving Machine initiative worldwide has helped raise tens of millions of dollars in donations, and now Spokane is part of that story of quiet, everyday kindness.
During this holiday season, eastern Washington is not just celebrating. It is stepping up to bless lives across our community and around the world. I am proud to represent a region that leads with generosity, and I encourage all who are able to to visit the Light the World Giving Machine and to join in this spirit of giving.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the Spokane Christmas Bureau and their 79th year of serving eastern Washington families and making each holiday season brighter.
Coordinated by Catholic Charities Eastern Washington, Volunteers of America, and The Spokesman-Review, the Christmas Bureau runs on the generosity of local donors and volunteers who give their time, talents, and treasures.
Through these community efforts, the bureau provides grocery vouchers to put food on the table and gather toys and books so children can experience the simple joy of a Christmas gift.
The Christmas Bureau serves folks in need throughout the greater Spokane area, including Adams, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Stevens, Spokane, and Whitman Counties, making sure no child is forgotten and that no table is empty at Christmas.
Mr. Speaker, the Christmas Bureau reminds us what makes eastern Washington and the holidays so wonderful. It is neighbors stepping up for neighbors year after year.
Mr. Speaker, over the last few weeks, many of us have walked past the familiar red kettles and heard the ringing bells of The Salvation Army outside our neighborhood grocery stores. Those kettles are just the tip of the iceberg of what The Salvation Army does for communities like mine in eastern Washington, not just at Christmas but all year long.
The donations collected outside of our local grocery stores are essential to funding key programs that serve our most vulnerable neighbors. In Spokane, The Salvation Army operates emergency foster care programs like Sally's House, providing safe and loving shelter for children removed from abusive or unsafe homes and giving them stability at one of the most traumatic moments in their young lives.
This holiday season, The Salvation Army in Spokane is leading toy drives across the greater Spokane area, collecting gifts so that hundreds of local children, who might otherwise go without, will wake up to a present under the tree.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that many of us in this Chamber have seen someone outside our neighborhood grocery store ringing a bell right next to a red kettle. When we all go home for the holidays, let us take a moment to thank The Salvation Army volunteers in our communities for raising money for programs like Sally's House and who are working every day to make our communities stronger.
Mr. Speaker, at this moment two families of Brown University students and 15 families in Sydney, Australia, are experiencing an anguish and heartbreak that is immeasurable, yet far too familiar.
Once again, we have seen hatred rear its ugly head in the form of gun violence, this time with 2 students murdered and 9 more injured at Brown, and 15 murdered and dozens injured in Sydney.
This comes on the heels of the 13th anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting that took 26 victims, including 20 children.
Last year, those 20 beautiful children who were violently taken from their families should have been graduating from high school. This year, they should have been coming home for the December break, seeing their childhood friends, and telling their parents about all that they learned and experienced in college. Those are experiences that their families have been robbed of.
We, as a society, have been robbed of all that they may have accomplished throughout their lives: families that will never be formed, careers that will never be, memories that will never happen. The families of the victims of those two horrific shootings will experience that same agony year after year and decade after decade.
My own community of Buffalo knows it all too well. On May 14, 2022, a racist, white supremacist, terrorist gunman drove nearly 3 hours to our community, the City of Good Neighbors, and opened fire at the only full-service grocery store in a prominently Black neighborhood.
Mr. Speaker, 10 lives were callously and heartlessly stolen from us with three more, including the son of a dear friend of mine, critically injured. Our city will never be the same again.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can choose another path.
In New York State, we did just that. We ensured that military-grade body armor stays only in the hands of law enforcement and our Armed Forces. We implemented enhanced red flag laws and universal background checks. We raised the age to own firearms from 18 to 21, and we banned assault rifles.
We know these laws work in New York, and we know they work everywhere else, but they are severely weakened by the flow of guns across State borders due to the lack of Federal regulation.
In the United States, for far too long, some have treated gun violence as a part of life. My Democratic colleagues and I reject that. We refuse to accept a reality in which our schools, our houses of worship, our movie theaters, our grocery stores, our government offices, our workplaces, our parades, our malls, and our nightclubs are treated as if they haven't been the scenes of horrific, deadly attacks.
The time for action is now. I implore this body to join me in supporting the assault weapons ban; universal background checks; stronger red flag laws; ending gun trafficking across State lines; and, among others, my bill, the Lieutenant Aaron Salter, Jr., Responsible Body Armor Possession Act.
I beg my colleagues not to accept the status quo and to fight for a safer Nation. We can and should do so much better for our children and future generations.
I pray for the lives of those who were lost this past weekend. I pray that our country sees the light and enacts real, substantive change that will end the scourge of gun violence across our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary achievement by a team who represents the very best of the space coast, our State, the Florida Tech Panthers, the 2025 NCAA Division II women's soccer national champions.
With a decisive 3-0 victory over Franklin Pierce, these student- athletes captured their first national title in program history. This championship was earned through discipline, teamwork, and an unwavering commitment to excellence--values that extend well beyond the soccer field.
I applaud the players, coaches, staff, and families who supported this team at every step of the way. Their hard work and leadership exemplify what college athletics is all about: strong competition, strong teammates, and future strong leaders.
Florida Tech Panthers made history and made our community proud. I congratulate our national champions.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Brevard County's Veteran of the Month for December 2025, Master Sergeant John ``Jay'' Johnson of the United States Air Force.
Master Sergeant Johnson entered service in 1961 and spent 20 years defending our Nation, retiring at the distinguished rank of master sergeant. He served as a direction finding controller and Morse intercept operator, critical roles in intelligence and national security efforts during some of the most challenging times during the Cold War and the Vietnam war.
Nearly 12 of his 20 years of service was spent overseas, including assignments in Germany, Italy, Turkiye, Japan, and the Philippines. His dedication and professionalism earned him numerous commendations, including the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, each a testament to his commitment to our Nation and his exceptional service to our Nation.
Master Sergeant Johnson embodies the very best of our Air Force and our country. We thank him for his unwavering commitment to duty and for his dedicated service for decades in defending freedom around the world and here at home.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with deep gratitude--gratitude to the people of New Mexico who have placed their trust in me and gratitude for all of those who have worked with me this past year, both Democrats and Republicans, who have helped me deliver real results for folks back home.
My district is one of the largest districts in the country, larger than the State of Pennsylvania, and includes major cities, border towns, Tribal communities, and rural counties that often feel forgotten by Washington.
New Mexico's Second District embodies the American spirit. We are a diverse people who get up every day, work a hard day's job, and take pride in our families and the work that we do.
This year, I set out with one simple goal: focus on the people in our district and do good by the families who call New Mexico home, regardless of their party affiliation. That is why, at a time when Washington has been paralyzed by partisan gridlock and way too much drama, my focus has remained on common sense and delivering real results.
The good people of New Mexico elected me to do a job, and I intend to do it; not with red or blue solutions, but practical solutions that are rooted in the real lives of the people who I represent.
Across southern New Mexico, we have seen that wildfire season is no longer seasonal. It is a constant threat. We have seen the State's two largest wildfires ravage communities and displace generations of folks from their homes.
I worked with my colleagues on both sides to pass a bipartisan bill that strengthens our ability to fight fires in remote and rural areas. My Aerial Firefighting Enhancement Act ensures that our communities and firefighters have more resources to protect lives, homes, and livelihoods when it counts most.
Mr. Speaker, when we talk about feeling forgotten, sometimes it is our rural communities that feel the most left out--places where Federal support can make the difference between a school being able to stay open, between having a graded road or one that is washboarded and crumbling, and between having lifesaving care that can reach your home in time.
That is why I successfully led a bipartisan push to restore $9 million and secure rural school funding for New Mexico's rural schools and our infrastructure, delivering much-needed resources to places like Catron, Grant, Sierra, and Cibola Counties.
Staying focused on common sense also meant listening to our military families at White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base. When they told me they were going without care because of the enormously long distances that it took to get to a hospital or to a clinic, I worked on a bipartisan bill that is now law, which expands travel reimbursement under TRICARE so that servicemembers and their loved ones aren't forced to shoulder the unnecessary costs just to get the care that they need.
Serving in New Mexico isn't just about passing bills here. It is about showing up when people need you. This year, my team and I resolved over 650 constituent cases, cutting through red tape, standing up to bureaucracy, and returning nearly $4.5 million to our taxpayers who were rightfully owed that money. For families waiting on Social Security, veterans navigating the VA, or seniors dealing with the IRS, that help was immediate and personal.
I have traveled over 5,000 miles on the road in my district this year. From talking to students in Deming, meeting with Tribal leaders in Zuni Pueblo, hosting a carne asada with oil workers in Carlsbad, and convening roundtables with police departments in Albuquerque, this is a big district with many needs, and advocacy doesn't just start at the Capitol steps.
Mr. Speaker, 2025 was also a big year in the fight to protect our public lands. When extreme proposals threatened to sell off millions of acres of our public lands, I founded the first-ever Bipartisan Public Lands Caucus to keep those lands public for hunters, ranchers, families, and future generations who deserve to keep this unique American birthright. Public lands are one of our Nation's best ideas, and I intend to keep it that way.
I have also worked hard to secure Federal investments across New Mexico, from addressing homelessness to investing in workplace training, to launching a new express bus service connecting Las Cruces to El Paso. I showed up, listened to what folks needed, and we got to work. These are smart investments that strengthen local economies and improve the daily lives of New Mexicans.
Lastly, my focus on bringing common sense to Washington is why I recently introduced the new plan for immigration this year. As someone who was raised on both sides of the border and represents 180 miles of that border today, I know that border security is more complex than just building a wall. I know that both parties have often gotten it wrong.
We need an immigration system that reflects our American values, and that makes smart investments in security and more legal pathways that strengthen our economy rather than undermine it.
I want to be clear about something: I don't work for either party. I work for the people of New Mexico, every single one of them, whether they voted for me or not. I am proud of what we have accomplished this year, but more than that, I am proud of how we accomplished it: by choosing collaboration over conflict.
Mr. Speaker, ``thank you''; ``gracias'' to the people of New Mexico for sending me here. I will continue showing up, fighting for them, and doing the work they sent me here to do.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Hoosier leader and a man whose service to our community has had a great impact on all of Indiana and the healthcare industry of our country. After 34 fruitful years, Mr. Rob McLin will retire in January from Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Indiana, the hospital in which he was born.
Over the years, Rob has shown great leadership at every level he has worked, including 15 years as president and CEO.
His tenure brought some of the most transformative advancements in Good Samaritan history, including the Beacon Project, the Gibault Memorial Tower construction, implementation of the Epic medical records system, creation of the hospital's EMS program, expansion of the Family Health Center, and establishment of a residency program that now educates new physicians in southern Indiana.
Rob has led the hospital through immense challenges, including the disastrous COVID-19 pandemic. He is a well-respected healthcare advocate, having served as the chair of the Indiana Hospital Association in 2020; and this year receiving the distinguished service award, which is one of the highest honors in Indiana healthcare.
Rob retires, leaving not only his many accomplishments but also a legacy of compassion, excellence, and commitment to the people who he served. I congratulate him on his well-deserved retirement and wish him many happy adventures with his wife, Angela, and their children and grandchildren.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Rob for his great service to our community.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an extraordinary group of young, Eighth District Hoosier artists from Indiana's Rockport Elementary School whose handmade Christmas ornaments are beautifully representing our great State at this year's National Christmas Tree Lighting Festival.
Each year, students from across the country are chosen to design Christmas tree ornaments that reflect the beauty and character of their home State.
This year, Rockport Elementary students in my district created wonderful ornaments that celebrate the spirit of Indiana, with some ornaments honoring our proud agricultural heritage and others displaying our State bird, the ruby red northern cardinal; and our State flower, the elegant peony.
Their artwork showcases everything from the Indy 500 race to our perpetual rolling cornfields and even pays tribute to Abraham Lincoln's boyhood home. These students just didn't create decorations, but they captured the spirit of our Hoosier State for the whole Nation to admire.
When I landed in Washington, D.C., this week, I went straight from the airport to visit our special State tree nearby the White House Christmas tree. I was so proud to see the artistry of our students, and I am inspired by their talent and creativity.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate every student who contributed to this wonderful display, as well as the teachers and families who encouraged their education and talents. Rockport Elementary has made Indiana proud, and I am honored to recognize their achievements here today.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in tribute to a remarkable man, a pillar of the community, and a devoted family man. Richard Joseph Barber, Jr., Esq., affectionately known as Dick, passed away on December 11. Dick's journey was one marked by dedication, service, and an unwavering commitment to the betterment of those around him.
A graduate of Archbishop Stepinac High School, Dick went on to further his education at St. Michael's College in Vermont, followed by St. John's Law School, which launched his career in the law.
Beyond the courtroom, Dick was a successful businessman, owning establishments such as the Coachman and Harbor Marine, which served as testaments to his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen.
Dick's contributions went beyond law and business. He proudly served his country as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, exhibiting a profound sense of duty. His dedication to duty and service was further exemplified through his attainment of numerous degrees and certifications in the New York State firefighting and hazmat world, ensuring that his community remained a safer place for all for over 60 years.
Left to cherish his memory are his beloved wife, Marilyn; his son, Richard III, and wife, Elaine, and their son, Richard IV; as well as his daughter, Deborah Rees, and her children, Nicole and Kimberly. Dick also leaves behind his siblings, Patricia Spacavento, Marylou Harvey, and Joan Syp. He was predeceased by his brother, Thomas Barber. He was the son of the late Richard Barber, Sr., and the late Frances Magnus Barber. His legacy will be felt not only by his family but by the countless lives he touched.
At this hour, there is a Mass of Christian Burial celebrated at the Church of the Resurrection in Rye, New York. Interment will follow at Greenwood Union in Rye.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember the life and times of Karen V. Hill, who passed away in November.
Her accomplishments and achievements in her 72 years cannot be properly summarized in a minute or two. She lived a life of leadership and service for 30-plus years, serving the underserved in equity, housing, and much more. She was appointed by the Federal court to implement the desegregation of housing and was president and CEO of the Harriet Tubman Home to preserve that historical legacy. She was appointed by Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission. She served as program director for the National Urban League, chief executive of the American Homeowner Education and Counseling Institute, and chair of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.
Through her sorority memberships, her faith in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Order of the Eastern Star, and the love of her large family and extended friendships, Karen Hill left her mark. Her visitation this past weekend at Greater Centennial AME Zion Church in Mount Vernon was a time for celebration of her life and acknowledgment that she now rests with the Lord.
Mr. Speaker, in the season where Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa, our Hispanic friends await the Three Kings Day celebration, our friends in the Jewish community commemorate Hanukkah and the historic celebration of light, the oil that lasted for eight nights, providing the menorah with light and warmth and survival.
With the horror of Sydney fresh at hand, a father and son using their weapons to systematically kill Jews celebrating Hanukkah at a beach event, it is a bittersweet month. Once again, we mourn unnecessary death motivated by intense hatred, fueled by the availability of weapons of death.
Over thousands of years of world history, Jews have been targeted in every land for death and for genocide, and this is just the latest such outrage.
As a Christian myself, I must let love rule, not hatred. We must end the manifestation of that hatred and violence. We must embrace our Jewish brothers and sisters, alongside those of every religion, that peace and tolerance are the only way to go, and it is a two-way street. All must commit themselves to tolerance and coexistence, and Almighty God will sort out the rest.
We mourn with the loss of the families in Sydney and all who suffer violence from anti-Semitism and hatred of any sort.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Butler, Pennsylvania, native and former University of Notre Dame quarterback, a guy that I grew up with and went to grade school, high school, and college with.
Terry Hanratty set this standard as a precision quarterback in the 1960s, helping to usher in an era of high-powered passing under Hall of Fame Coach Ara Parseghian, cementing his legacy as one of Notre Dame's all-time greats.
The Butler, Pennsylvania, native now becomes the 50th Fighting Irish player to enter the College Football Hall of Fame.
A consensus First Team All-American in 1968, Terry led Notre Dame to a 24-4-2 record during his 3 years under center at South Bend, including a share of the national title in 1966. The Irish finished the 1966 season 9-0-1, tying Michigan State in what has been called the Game of the Century.
The Irish won 83.3 percent of their games with Terry as the starting signal caller, and the Irish boasted a final ranking of number 5 or better during all 3 years of his tenure. Terry finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1968, ninth in 1967, and sixth in 1966.
Paired with wide receiver Jim Seymour as part of the duo dubbed ``Fling and Cling,'' Hanratty set career records for pass completions, 304; passing yards, 4,152; and touchdown passes, 27, during his time in South Bend. He added 16 touchdowns and 586 yards on the ground. His 63 passing attempts against Purdue in 1967 still rank second in our school's annals. His 159.7 passing yards per game land him number 9 in school records. His pass attempts per game in a season, 28.1, and pass completions per game, 16.6, stood as school standards for more than 25 years.
In addition to Coach Parseghian, Terry will now join teammates Jim Lynch, Alan Page, and Joe Theismann as members of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Terry is also active in the community. He served as Allegheny County chairman of the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, and he participated in the Jerry Lewis Telethon to support muscular dystrophy, as well as NFL events to raise funds for children with cancer.
Terry Hanratty spent his entire life helping other people. More than being a tremendous athlete, I think it is more important that he was a tremendous person. He is a guy people looked up to. Young people have to have someone to look up to. Terry Hanratty is certainly one of those people.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor a Pittsburgh Pirates legend, Mr. Vern Law, who was inducted into the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame this summer. I had the chance to join Mr. Law for this momentous ceremony in Pittsburgh.
Mr. Law was a key member of the Pirates 1960 World Series championship team, and he spent all 16 seasons of his Major League career in Pittsburgh. He was also a two-time All-Star and a Cy Young Award winner.
Off the field, faith was incredibly important to Mr. Law. He became a deacon in the Church of Latter-day Saints, a title he first earned at the age of 12 years old. He later became a teacher and was then ordained as a priest at age 17.
For 73 years, Mr. Law was married to his wife, VaNita, who passed away in 2023.
At age 95, Vern Law's legacy on and off the baseball field is etched in western Pennsylvania history forever.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor someone who helped shape the city of Washougal for the better, former Mayor Molly Coston. Most folks in Washougal didn't call her Mayor Coston. They called her Mayor Molly because she exuded grace, tenacity, and friendliness.
Molly served her community for nearly a decade on the city council and then as mayor from 2018 to 2021.
Molly didn't sit on the sidelines. She rolled up her sleeves. She was involved in every effort, from revitalizing downtown Washougal to her service to local community groups, including 25 years in her local Rotary Club. If there was work to be done, Molly showed up.
Molly lived a big life outside of city hall, too. She was even a master scuba diver. She brought that same sense of curiosity and courage to her public service.
Mayor Molly Coston passed away this November at the age of 77. Washougal is better because Molly made it her home, and her impact will last for generations.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate a talented songwriter and Mossyrock native, Chris Guenther.
Southwest Washington is a place that is built on hard work, mills, farms, welding, logging, and small businesses. With that comes a certain kind of music. It is honest and real.
Chris Guenther has been carrying that sound for decades. This year, he was nominated by the International Western Music Association for both Songwriter of the Year and Western Album of the Year for his record ``Singing to Cows.''
I will admit that I have sung to cows. I have never thought about telling people I do that or writing a song about it. I have to ask Chris how his cows feel about Roy Rogers' lyrics: Beef, sweet beef, next week you will boil and fry.
That is exactly why people connect with him. He is genuine. He tells the truth. He plays the kind of music that comes from living the life he sings about.
Mr. Speaker, Chris Guenther has a lot more ahead of him, and I am proud to recognize him today as one of the artists keeping the spirit of our district alive and well.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight a powerful example in my district that shows how investing in career and technical education strengthens both our community and public safety.
In October of this year, students from Kelso High School's advanced welding class teamed up with the Kelso Police Department to fabricate, install, and reinforce pit bars on two decommissioned patrol vehicles, converting them to safe, durable training cars for officers to practice the precision immobilization technique.
I have to say, I am kind of jealous of the kids. Having kids be able to get real, tangible experience is something that cannot be duplicated in a textbook. That is what is so amazing about CTE programs. They are making resources and skills available that they cannot get elsewhere. They cannot get that online. This is an asset for them whenever they are ready to hit the workforce.
When I visited Kelso High School in April, I saw firsthand how welding, automotive, culinary, and other CTE courses give young people a pathway to good careers.
I am proud to represent a district that leads the hard way, the real way, with respect for how things used to be done and creativity in bringing those practices to bear today.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize a remarkable American hero, Mr. Harry Humason, who turns the vibrant age of 100 this December.
Harry volunteered to join the Army in December 1943. He valiantly fought in World War II, with Patton's 3rd Army, 5th Infantry Division, 2nd Infantry Regiment, helping to liberate Frankfurt, Germany, and towns in Czechoslovakia.
This year, his daughter raised funds to bring him to Europe and visit places that he had not seen since he was there in combat, and he was greeted as a hero. People remembered him and remembered what he had done for their country and the world.
After the war, Harry used the GI Bill to earn a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and went on to build missiles and rockets at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, a true example of American ingenuity and service after service.
I have had the honor of spending time with Harry, and I know him not just as a veteran but as a thoughtful, engaged public servant. Harry is an example of doing unto others as you would like to be done to you.
Mr. Speaker, I wish Harry a happy birthday. May all of his courage and integrity continue to inspire us all.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the career and service of Humaira Falkenberg as she retires from Pacific County PUD after nearly 15 years devoted to public service.
Humaira has stood for reliable energy, economic self-determination for rural communities, and the belief that the small things attended to with joy and diligence are the building blocks of a more beautiful world.
Beyond her work at the PUD, Humaira has brought her full self to her community as a leader for JEDI Outdoors, a ski instructor, an alpinist, a ski mountaineer, and a kite surfer. Her life reminds us that public service and personal passion can go hand in hand.
I have worked with Humaira on issues like grid capacity, support for existing power generation, and the well-being of rural communities. I have seen her integrity, vision, and dedication. She helped shape our community not just through power lines but through joy, service, and candor.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking her for her service and to wish her a retirement filled with continued purpose, community, and adventure.
Mr. Speaker, for 43 days, the Democrats shut down the government, and they said it was over the issue of the ACA premium tax credits.
I went and confronted Leader Jeffries, and I asked him to sign on to a 1-year extension. He refused.
When the government finally opened, I and a number of my Republican and Democratic colleagues sat down in good faith to negotiate an extension of the ACA premium tax credits with reforms because we recognized that this system, as designed, is not working, that ObamaCare is not actually reducing healthcare costs in America.
In fact, since it took effect, healthcare premiums have risen by 96 percent, but we understood that to allow the premium tax credits to expire would hurt the American people. We sat down and negotiated, and we came up with several plans and compromises along the way to ensure not only that there was an extension but that we did eliminate fraud, that we did hold the insurance companies accountable, and that we did actually start to reduce costs.
We have put those bills forward on the floor in two separate discharge petitions. Eleven Republicans have signed on to those discharge petitions.
Now, why is that necessary? Because House Republican leadership will not allow a vote. It is idiotic and shameful. We have been forced to sign on to two discharge petitions, and yet my Democratic colleagues will not join us but for those that were at the negotiation table.
The Democratic leader will not release his Members to sign those two discharge petitions. Why? Because he doesn't actually want to solve the problem. He wants the issue. He wants the issue, which is precisely why Senator Schumer put a 3-year clean extension on the Senate floor that was doomed to fail, because it doesn't have bipartisan compromise.
This place is disgraceful. Everybody wants the upper hand. Everybody wants the political advantage. They don't actually want to do the damn work.
This problem could be solved today if everybody who says they care about extending this signs the discharge. It could be solved today. We could say to leadership on both sides: ``A pox on both your houses.'' Both of you are failing this country. Both of you are failing this institution. Move the bill forward.
The challenge I have for every one of my colleagues is to put the party crap aside and sign the damn discharge today. If you want this vote to move, if you want to extend these subsidies, if you want to make sure that the American people's healthcare premiums don't skyrocket, then go sign the discharge now.
We all understand one thing. You need 218 here and you need 60 in the Senate. We saw the 3-year extension, with no reforms, fail last week. To just say that we are going to hold out and wait to see if four Republicans sign the 3-year extension, that you know is destined to fail in the Senate, is a failure of leadership and responsibility.
Leader Jeffries, come down to this floor, sign the discharge, and show real leadership because, sadly, my conference has failed to do that.
All of us, as Representatives of our own districts and our own constituents, have a responsibility to stand up. That is why I met with my Democratic colleagues as soon as the government was reopened to negotiate in good faith. It is why people like Brian Fitzpatrick and Jen Kiggans and David Valadao have been leading on this issue with folks like Jared Golden and Josh Gottheimer and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Tom Suozzi, because we understand this needs to get done.
There is failure of Members on both sides of the aisle who know it needs to get done, but they just want the issue or they don't want to do it because they hate ObamaCare. We know ObamaCare failed. We know it is not actually reducing costs, but you can't fix it with nothing. Do your job and sign the discharge.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call for the immediate reestablishment of funding for PEPFAR and our public health support for poor countries.
I do so with a heavy heart, holding in my hand three documents that every Member of this body should read. One is a legal brief filed just days ago by Physicians for Human Rights. Another is a devastating new investigation released by ProPublica. The third is a status report on PEPFAR from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Taken together, these documents paint a picture of moral abdication that should keep every single one of us awake at night.
I want to talk about the data in these reports, Mr. Speaker, but first I need to speak from a place that goes beyond policy. I need to speak with you as a Christian.
Scripture teaches us that our responsibilities to one another are not limited by borders. In the Gospel of Luke, we are told: ``From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.''
The United States has been entrusted with much. We are the wealthiest, most powerful Nation on Earth. With that blessing comes a profound responsibility to the least of these. Today, we are failing that responsibility in a profoundly immoral way.
The legal brief I hold warns that the dismantling of our public health support for poor countries is causing irreversible losses. It estimates that the shutdown of USAID assistance has already cost 600,000 people to die, two-thirds of them children.
The numbers can be numbing, Mr. Speaker, so let me tell you about the people behind these numbers as detailed in this new ProPublica investigation.
While political appointees in Washington were literally celebrating these budget cuts with a sheet cake in a conference room, a 38-year-old man named Tor Top was in a canoe in South Sudan. He was paddling desperately trying to get his sick mother to a hospital 8 hours away. Why was he in that canoe? Because the local clinic, funded by U.S. humanitarian aid and run by Christian missionaries, had been forced to close its doors.
The IV bags needed to treat cholera cost just 62 cents, but because we cut that funding, his mother died in that canoe halfway to help.
ProPublica tells us about Rebecca Nyariaka, a 28-year-old mother living in a refugee camp. Cuts to these vital programs had stopped the sanitation services that kept the camp clean. Overflowing latrines spread disease. Rebecca died of cholera just days after
It is not just cholera. Look at the KFF report on PEPFAR. PEPFAR is not a partisan project. It was created by President George W. Bush in 2003. It is perhaps the single greatest humanitarian achievement in modern history, credited with saving 26 million lives.
The report shows that the current administration's stop work order has frozen payments and services. They have canceled 86 percent of all awards for this assistance. The result: We are losing thousands of HIV health workers in Kenya, Malawi, and South Africa. The KFF report warns that ending this funding could result in 565,000 new HIV infections over the next 10 years in sub-Saharan Africa alone. We are undoing decades of progress. We are actively allowing a plague to return.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, doctors are reporting that without USAID, they cannot even release Mpox vaccines that are currently locked in storage rooms. In Uganda, babies are being born HIV positive again after years of near elimination of mother-to-child transmission.
Some might ask: Is this our problem?
To that I answer with the words of my faith: We are our brother's keeper.
To my colleagues who prefer a strategic argument, I say this: These diseases don't respect borders. The legal brief explicitly warns that infectious disease knows no borders. When we stop treating tuberculosis or cholera abroad, we allow outbreaks to grow until they threaten us here at home. Our American global health surveillance was the reason the 2004 Ebola outbreak was contained, with only eleven cases ever reaching U.S. soil. We are dismantling the very fire alarm system that protects our own house.
Mr. Speaker, we are losing twice. We are losing our moral standing, and we are losing our physical security. Taxpayers will pay once for the dismantled programs, and then they will pay again, much more dearly, when these preventable crises reach our shores.
We cannot be the nation that celebrates savings with cake while mothers die in canoes for lack of a 62-cent IV bag.
I urge this body to reverse course. We must reestablish funding for PEPFAR. We must restore our lifesaving public health support for poor countries. Let us do it because it is the smart thing to do for our safety. But more importantly let us do it because it is the right thing to do. Let us not be the generation that walked away when we had the power to save millions of lives.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to congratulate my fellow Columbus Explorer, Fernando Mendoza, winner of the 2025 Heisman Trophy.
Fernando's remarkable journey began in Miami, Florida, and at Christopher Columbus High School, an institution known not only for producing elite athletes but for installing faith, discipline, leadership, and character.
Miami has long been a cradle of football excellence, and Fernando Mendoza now joins that proud legacy. His achievement reflects the values of perseverance, sacrifice, and opportunity that define our community.
As the first Cuban American to win the Heisman Trophy, Fernando's victory carries special meaning. His story reminds us that in America, deep faith, hard work, and determination know no limits.
Miami is proud. The Columbus Explorers are proud. Today, the United States Congress proudly recognizes Fernando Mendoza for this historic achievement.
Congratulations to Fernando on a moment that will inspire generations to come. ``Forward,'' ``adelante.''
Mr. Speaker, President Trump ran on a promise to the American people that ICE would go after the worst of the worst.
Well, we are now coming up on a year of this Presidency, and I want to talk to the folks at home who feel disillusioned by what ICE is doing in our country.
What we have seen is that ICE is not overwhelmingly going after criminals. In fact, over 70 percent of people currently detained in detention facilities do not have a criminal record.
Who are they going after? They are going after 6-year-olds in my district. They are going after students and permanent residents for their political views. They are going after Americans born and raised in the United States. Time and time again, Trump has floated taking away citizenship from U.S. citizens based on their ethnicity.
At every point, this administration has lied to us about ICE in America while some of the wealthiest actors in our country have tried to sell us a myth to defend it, including private prison contractors. That myth, that ideology, is that our immigrant neighbors are our enemies and more dangerous than us. They sustain that myth because if everybody believes it, they can get away with robbing all of us.
I want to remind you where the real crime is. It is in the oligarchs taking $170 billion of our money from healthcare and food assistance and public programs and taking that and funneling it into a secret police program.
It is the authoritarians trying to create a black box, because once it is established they can put political dissidents inside of it.
But their hatred is a story, a myth, and we can choose to reject it. Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want you to believe that this is who we are as a country. We are here to say that it is not.
We are a country that has fought and defeated the Confederacy, that has defeated a history of civil rights violations, of secret police, and of fascism. We are a country guided by a monument to freedom on the waters of New York City who shines brightly and welcomes the ``huddled masses yearning to breathe free'' to our shores.
Right now, I ask everyone in our country to fight for that ideal, to fight for this legacy.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise with a heavy heart to honor the life of the former mayor of Canton, Ohio, Thomas Bernabei.
As a focused and committed public servant, Mayor Bernabei served the city of Canton and Stark County for more than 50 years in various capacities, but with the same dedication that drew praise and admiration from across the region.
As a lifelong Stark County resident, Mayor Bernabei graduated from Lehman High before attending Brown University and later serving his country with the United States Army in Vietnam.
Mr. Bernabei later attended The Ohio State University College of Law before beginning his long career in public service.
Tom Bernabei got his start as an assistant prosecutor at the Massillon Municipal Court and then served as a Canton's assistant law director, law director, and as a Stark County commissioner and interim director of the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority.
Canton voters first chose Mayor Bernabei for mayor in 2015 where he served for two terms as a compassionate listener and problem solver.
When he first took the job, the city of Canton faced significant budget deficits, but by the time he left office, the city had a roughly $12-million surplus.
Mayor Bernabei championed the cause of affordable housing, helping working families across Canton realize their own American Dream while calling Canton, Ohio, their home.
Before serving as mayor, Bernabei sat on the Stark County Board of Commissioners from 2010 to 2015.
In every role, he brought fairness, humility, and a true commitment to helping his community. As mayor, Mr. Bernabei worked tirelessly to make Canton better.
He oversaw the construction of Centennial Plaza and supported workforce
I want to say personally: It was a privilege to work with him. He cared deeply about Canton, and he never stopped fighting for its future.
When I saw him at the swearing-in of his successor, I asked him if he was really going to retire or if he was going to pretend retire.
He said: Don't worry. You will still see me around doing the work of the people.
As a Renaissance man, Mayor Bernabei repeatedly displayed his love and support for the arts, especially in 2016 as he and his wife, Bebe, appeared as dinner party guests in a Canton Ballet production of ``The Nutcracker.''
Mr. Bernabei also loved supporting the Cleveland Guardians and the Ohio State Buckeyes and spending time with his dog, Rosie.
Mayor Bernabei passed away on December 11 at the age of 89, just one day before his wife, Bebe, and he would have celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary. His loss is deeply felt by everyone who knew him.
Following his passing, Governor Mike DeWine ordered that flags be flown at half-staff at all public buildings and grounds to honor his memory. This past weekend, the city of Canton had the opportunity to pay our respects to a giant, a leader, a father, a grandfather, a husband, and a public servant.
Today, on behalf of Ohio's 13th Congressional District, I send my sincere condolences to his wife, Bebe; his daughters; grandchildren; and all who knew and loved him. May the memory of Tom Bernabei inspire us all to continue the work that he believed in and believed in so strongly in the city of Canton.
Mr. Speaker, the first time I spoke on this floor this year, I highlighted the vision the Nation and our constituents charged us to usher in when they elected this Republican majority 1 year ago. The 77 million Americans had given this Congress a mandate to restore commonsense solutions and get our country back on track.
The country was overwhelmingly frustrated with the open border, the Green New Deal, the heavy-handed regulatory policies from the Biden- Harris administration, and we all wanted the madness to stop.
This Republican majority has been laser focused on keeping our promise to America, and I am proud of all that we have accomplished in a little under 1 year.
For years, the Nation watched as radical activists targeted the right to life, the right to bear arms, and even the freedom of speech. These rights are fundamental to who we are as Americans. On September 10, 2025, the country saw the unimaginable happen when Charlie Kirk was senselessly assassinated for practicing his right to free speech and open debate. That is not who we are as Americans.
Rather than allowing this evil to silence patriotic Americans, this majority recommitted ourselves to our founding values and the fact that we are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights and that the government exists to secure those rights, regardless of what way the political winds are blowing.
As we move into 2026 and look forward to celebrating the 250th anniversary of our great Nation, it is important that we recommit ourselves to faith, family, and freedom and continue fighting to ensure that leadership in our Nation's Capital supports and affirms our God- given rights.
As I talk with Kansans about the challenges here in Washington, we all agreed: We need more Kansas values and commonsense solutions. While there is still a lot of work to do, we had a strong start to restoring this commonsense leadership. Over the course of the first 3 months of our Republican majorities in the House and Senate and President Trump's Presidency, we repealed Green New Deal policies that hindered small businesses, stifled innovation, and drove up costs for everyday families.
President Trump's policies delivered the safest border in our Nation's history with Customs and Border Protection showing a 95 percent decline in daily encounters under President Trump compared to President Biden's policies within the first 100 days. President Trump and congressional Republicans' policies enforced the law and worked tirelessly to remove bad actors from the country. Month after month, the data has shown and continues to show that our country is more secure now than ever.
Our national debt continues to be a concern, standing today at $38 trillion. It is obvious that Congress needs to continue cleaning up our fiscal house, and, for once, we have leadership willing to rein in wasteful spending.
President Trump was the first President in our Nation's history to do what is necessary: pause Federal spending, go line by line through the Federal budget, and seriously evaluate how our Federal dollars are being spent. For many leaders of the Nation's Capital, this was heartburn, but for fiscal conservatives like me, it was welcomed fiscal sanity.
Majorities in the House and Senate supported this rollback of wasteful spending, rescinding $9 billion spending for voter ID initiatives overseas, electric buses in Africa, and millions of dollars in LGBT movements around the world. This wasn't just fiscal irresponsibility. It is highway robbery.
All of Washington should be working with Republicans to rein in our government spending, but as far-left activists demanded free healthcare for illegal immigrants, Federal spending lapsed, and the government shut down for 43 days, putting some of our most vulnerable and brave Americans at risk. House Republicans remained united, and we did not cave to the radical left. We stood firm and continued to urge our colleagues across the aisle to come to the table, return to regular order, and get our fiscal house back in order.
Together, this majority has enacted policies that restore the American Dream. As a fifth-generation Kansan, I take that American Dream very seriously. For five generations, my family has farmed, raised cattle, and been involved in our western Kansas community. I want my children and future grandchildren to be able to do the same.
The working families tax cuts passed by Congress help restore the American Dream by making the Trump tax cuts permanent and ushering in a new era of economic prosperity and growth for the country. Our legislation prevented Kansans from seeing a tax hike of more than $2,000 this upcoming January, made long-overdue investments in strengthening the farm safety net, and restored American energy dominance while ensuring affordable, reliable energy access for families across the country.
This is the future Kansas families voted for as they have waited for years to get a degree of relief from the historic inflation levels caused by President Biden.
Serving in the Big First District in the U.S. House of Representatives is a tremendous honor. I look forward to all that we are going to accomplish next term as we celebrate all the victories of this year.
Mr. Speaker, let's talk about a topic of vital importance: the rising cost of living in America and the rising unemployment rates. Mr. Speaker, 700,000, more workers got pink- slipped.
Throughout the last year, the President of the free world made numerous golden promises that prices would come down under a Trump administration. Unfortunately, to date, that promise hasn't been kept.
Everywhere I go in my district, from Bryan to Defiance, from Sandusky to Toledo, I hear the same plea over and over: Life isn't affordable, and it is getting worse, Marcy.
My constituents in northwestern Ohio are struggling to afford the cost of their groceries at the checkout counter. They are struggling to afford their cost of rent, of buying a home, and property taxes are on the rise.
In Ohio health insurance costs, too, are set to skyrocket for over 500,000 families due to inaction to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
This July, households in Ohio saw their monthly energy bills increase a minimum of 10 percent. Some more than doubled with AI data centers competing for land. Congress must help local communities develop plans to prevent rising bills for energy and water.
Our constituents in Whitehouse told me that her family already saw their energy bill go from $230 a month to $494 in July.
How can any family afford that?
In my part of the country, the Great Lakes, our region's economy is intertwined with our neighbors to the north, Canada, our largest trading partner. If our Great Lakes nation were a country, we would be the third largest economy in the world.
Why is this administration and Congress hurting us?
Punitive tariffs have sent our regional economy spiraling. The cost of lumber is up. The cost of cars is up. The cost of steel is up, and the cost of potash is up. The cost of almost everything is up.
This hurts not only our consumers but also our workers who make Toledo Jeeps or parts for other American automakers like General Motors and Ford. Thousands of autoworkers have been laid off.
Tariffs also really hurt our farmers in the field. They have lost major share of markets in corn and soy abroad because of reckless trade wars. Higher input costs cripple the ability to farm the same fields their families have farmed for generations.
Cattlemen in our region are struggling to feed their herds and also get their beef to market affordably at the same time that President Trump gave $40 billion--handed over $40 billion--in American taxpayer money to Argentina whose farmers are trying to undercut the very cattlemen I represent.
One farmer called my office yesterday. He made $100,000 less this year because of tariffs and rising input costs because of tariffs.
He said: Luckily, Marcy, we saved some money from the Biden years, but our income has been very, very difficult to meet rising costs. We make some money from ethanol and biodiesel. Keep up the work on that, Marcy, he said.
Mr. Speaker, tens of thousands of people across northwestern Ohio, 500,000 Ohioans in total, and 15 million more nationwide are at risk of losing their health insurance, being priced out of the market.
A constituent from Clyde, Ohio, said: Marcy, high insurance prices will allow people to die by making health insurance unaffordable. It was terrible for our family before the ACA. We will band together to try to help feed our neighbors, but we aren't doctors. We need affordable healthcare.
A Toledo resident told me their family cannot afford another crushing expense. He said: ``Groceries cost more than twice what they did a few years ago. Childcare and rent are up for us more than ever. Now, unless Congress acts, our health insurance premiums could double. For a family like mine, that means an extra $100 per person, per month. It is money we simply don't have. Please, extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits and protect working families. We need relief, not higher costs.''
These pleas aren't aberrations. They come every day. They are the norm. Wherever I go, I hear someone suffering under rising costs.
Our neighbors are struggling to afford their groceries as States nationwide are trying to cut SNAP dollars for those who need them and limit what they can buy.
Meanwhile, food costs across the board are up 3.1 percent. Beef and veal are up 14.7 percent as of the end of September. A pound of beef costs $6.23 or more. It is simply just unaffordable. That number continues to climb.
For the last year, there has been no action by the majority in this Chamber, by the White House, or anyone else in power to address the affordability crisis.
Hello? Hello?
Reckless and ill-considered tariffs have made it worse. Let me assure you, Mr. Speaker, people in northwest Ohio are paying attention and deciding how to live. We need this Congress and the President, the other end of this avenue, to work together.
Mr. Speaker, as we approach Christmas and families around the world gather to celebrate, it is important that we reflect on those not free to worship. Christmas is a time of joy, faith, and community. Under totalitarian dictatorships, it is a reminder that repression and fear exist.
Across the globe, dictators impose crushing communist and totalitarian systems that deny basic freedoms, including the freedom of religion. Christmas celebrations are banned or subverted by war criminal Putin and the Chinese Communist Party to worship the state.
America was founded that faith should be freely practiced, not state- subverted. We honor the spirit of Christmas and the values of America. Merry Christmas to all countries.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. Trump is instituting
As the New York Post editorialized, Putin sent Witkoff and Jared Kushner packing with yet more aerial assaults on Ukrainian civilians. American public support for Ukraine is growing.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Lieutenant General Kenneth A. Minihan, United States Air Force, a transformative leader in American intelligence who passed away last month.
General Minihan spent 33 years in uniform, advancing the security of our Nation. Rising through the ranks, he ultimately led all U.S. Air Force intelligence efforts as Deputy Chief, Intelligence, and subsequently held key joint force positions, commanding both the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
He guided the intelligence community through its most consequential transition from the Cold War to the Information Age and pushed America to prepare for a world where data, networks, and information would define the next battlefield.
A visionary of what we now know is cyberspace, he recognized the power and risk associated with this warfighting domain. He warned the Nation about foreign intrusions into our military networks, championed real-time integrated military operations, and built foundations of the cyber and signals enterprise we depend on today.
His leadership created the structures, culture, and historical stewardship that still guide America's intelligence ideals. General Minihan was a man dedicated to his intelligence tradecraft, his Commander in Chief, his Nation, and his family.
His service to country was strengthened by the steadfast devotion of his wife, Barbara. She raised their family through every military deployment and every move, and supported military spouses and children across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps with grace and compassion.
A son of Texas and a proud airman, General Minihan leaves a legacy of military and intelligence professionals to carry his guidon into the future of a strong and secure U.S. national security enterprise.
On behalf of the House Intelligence Committee and a grateful Nation, we thank and honor Lieutenant General Ken Minihan for a lifetime of extraordinary service.
Mr. Speaker, the Tarboro High School Viking football team is North Carolina's 2A State champion.
The Vikings completed an amazing, undefeated 15-0 season. The victory marked the program's 10th State championship title and back-to-back title wins.
He may go all the way, indeed. Senior Kamerin McDowell-Moore went all the way. He was named the game's MVP, recording 15 tackles and 17 carries for 190 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Coach Jeff Craddock is the absolute GOAT. Many thanks to Principal Terry Hopkins, coaches, parents, the Tarboro community, and the entire Viking family for their incredible support.
Mr. Speaker, when our student-athletes succeed, the entire community wins. What a victory for the Vikings.
Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4776, Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1366, Mining Regulatory Clarity Act; Providing For...
Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), 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.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules met last night and reported a rule, House Resolution 951, providing for consideration of six measures.
The rule provides for H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act, to be considered under a structured rule, making in order six amendments. Additionally, it provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and it provides for one motion to recommit.
Further, H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, and H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, will be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate, each equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and provides each with one motion to recommit.
Additionally, H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, and H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, will each be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, or their respective designees, with one motion to recommit.
Finally, H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act, will be considered under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.
The rule before us gives this House an opportunity to finally begin undoing the damage caused by years of reckless regulatory overreach and economic mismanagement driven by Democrats' failed policies.
Joe Biden may no longer be in the White House, but American families are still paying the price for his administration's failures. Under President Biden, this country experienced the worst inflation spike in 40 years, and we are still paying the price. Groceries costs were more, housing costs were more, transportation costs more, and working families were left wondering how much further their paychecks could stretch.
Mr. Speaker, that pressure didn't stop there. Under Democratic leadership, electricity prices surged by more than 20 percent in many parts of the country, including my own in New York.
Families opened their utility bills and asked a simple question: Why is this getting so expensive so quickly?
The answer is clear: Democrats chose ideology over affordability. They chose mandates over reliability, and they chose Washington control over simple, plain common sense.
Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act. For years, Democrats have taken the well-intentioned National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and twisted it far beyond its original purpose.
NEPA was meant to be a commonsense safeguard for our environment, not a tool to block projects indefinitely, but that is exactly how it is being abused today. NEPA is now one of the most litigated statutes in Federal law, not because projects fail environmental standards but because a small group of activist organizations exploit the process itself. They file endless lawsuits to stall infrastructure, energy, and conservation projects for years and years, sometimes decades, with little regard to the real-world consequences for workers, families, communities, and progress.
Those consequences are real. Projects get shelved. Costs skyrocket. Jobs disappear, and families pay more for energy, housing, and basic infrastructure.
We see this broken system clearly in upstate New York. Take Micron, a company and a project too big to fail. This historic investment to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States is critical for our country, for our national security, and for the upstate economy. This project means thousands of good-paying jobs and a stronger domestic supply chain. Yet despite meeting some of the most stringent environmental review requirements in the country under New York law, Micron is still being forced through duplicative Federal reviews that reach the very same conclusions as the State reviews.
As a result, Micron is the only semiconductor project in the country held up, pending a full environmental impact statement, not because of environmental risk, but because of bureaucratic delay and regulatory duplication.
This is not environmental protection. This is regulatory paralysis, and it is costing us jobs and a brighter economic future.
Time and again, Democrats defend this broken system because it gives Washington more control and activist groups more leverage. Because of this process, the result is gridlock. Nothing gets built. Nothing gets fixed. Nothing gets cheaper.
The SPEED Act restores balance. It reins in duplicative reviews. It requires the Federal Government to make timely decisions and stop endless delay from becoming the official policy of the government.
If Democrats are serious about infrastructure, clean energy, and environmental progress, they should support fixing the permitting system that they helped break. They should have no problem supporting things like the SPEED Act.
Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act.
Years of Democratic energy policy have put our electric grid under real, significant strain, and Americans are feeling the consequences in real time.
Demand is rising rapidly. Manufacturing growth and electrification are pushing this system harder and harder every single year. At the same time, Democrats are forcing reliable baseload generation offline, without a serious plan to replace it. Instead of coordinating policy, they regulate in silos. Instead of planning for reliability, they react after the fact.
The Power Plant Reliability Act forces accountability. It ensures regulators cannot quietly retire critical power plants without fully understanding the reliability consequences on our Nation.
Americans don't need a white paper to understand what happens when reliability is ignored. They see it when the power goes out. They feel it when their energy bills spike. They pay the price when Washington refuses to plan for real-world demand.
Keeping the lights on should not be controversial. It should be something we should be able to get 435 votes on, but Democrats chose politics over reliability. The families in this country are the ones paying the price right now. Premature plant retirements are only part of the problem.
The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act.
This bill addresses another uncomfortable truth that Democrats don't want to admit. Federal agencies are finalizing regulations that directly threaten grid stability without fully accounting for the consequences, and it is just purely reckless.
The Reliable Power Act requires a long-term reliability assessment that ensures that when serious risks are identified, regulators cannot simply ignore them and press ahead anyway.
Quite simply, this legislation is about ending, once and for all, the implementation of asinine regulations that only harm our grid's reliability. Reliable electricity underpins everything: public safety, economic growth, hospitals, schools, and national security. Republicans are treating that responsibility seriously, and that is why we are bringing this legislation forward today. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not.
Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act.
Democrats talk endlessly about supply chains and national security, but their policies undermine both. Domestic mining projects are stalled, not because they fail environmental standards, but because Democrats have once again allowed endless regulation and regulatory ambiguity to choke them off.
That means fewer American jobs. It means greater dependence on foreign adversaries that are getting rich in the process. It means higher costs across our economy.
If Democrats want secure supply chains and fewer imports from hostile foreign powers, this is exactly the kind of bill that they should support.
Mr. Speaker, the rule also includes consideration of H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act.
It is impossible to deny that the recovery of the gray wolf is a success story. Population goals were met years and years ago, yet Democrats refuse to trust the science and acknowledge the clear success of saving the gray wolf population in this country. Why? Because it would mean betraying the radical environmental groups that want to see laws like the Endangered Species Act weaponized rather than work as intended, to save these animals.
Instead, bowing to their base and ignoring the science, Democrats have kept the future of gray wolf management trapped in endless litigation, leaving farmers and ranchers to deal with the real consequences that they face on their ranches and farms every single day.
What are those consequences? Livestock are attacked, and livelihoods across rural America are threatened, all to satisfy the whims of a radical left activist base that thinks their food comes from the grocery store and their energy comes from a socket in the wall when you plug something in.
The Pet and Livestock Protection Act puts an end to this endless litigation and weaponization of the ESA. It recognizes science, acknowledges success, and restores balance, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem unwilling to do.
Mr. Speaker, finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act.
The bill exists because of a tragic failure, one that my Democratic colleagues, who supported the last administration for 4 long years of open borders, would rather continue to ignore. As the first Trump administration recognized, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program has been exploited by criminals, including gang members, who come to this country as wolves in sheep's clothing. These individuals use the UAC system not for protection but to recruit and traffic new members and to wreak havoc on American communities.
Under the Biden administration open-border, no-consequences policies, policies my Democratic colleagues wholeheartedly supported, that exploitation exploded. During the Biden years, approximately 465,000 unaccompanied alien children were released to unvetted sponsors. The program lacked basic safeguards to prevent illegal aliens from serving as sponsors.
According to Health and Human Services, roughly 85 percent of UAC sponsors lack lawful immigration status. Thanks to the Biden administration's own policies supported by Democrats for 4 years, countless smugglers, cartels, and bad actors profited from nothing less than the exploitation of children and human trafficking.
Instead of tightening safeguards as encounters surged, Democrats chose to roll back background checks and sponsor reviews, moving children out of law enforcement custody faster, regardless of risk. The consequences to innocent children harmed from years of this horrific policy choice have yet to be fully reckoned with and will certainly haunt generations of innocent victims for years to come.
What we do know is that in May 2024, the Biden administration had lost track of more than 320,000 unaccompanied alien children, placing them at heightened risk of sex trafficking, forced labor, and abuse.
Mr. Speaker, this is not compassion. This is pure negligence.
Picking up the pieces from the wreckage of the Biden-Harris immigration policies, the Trump administration has committed to locating these children and to saving lives, something that eluded Democrats for 4 long years. So far, more than 22,600 unaccompanied children have been located, and over 400 sponsors have been arrested. Tragically, 27 minors have been found dead, victims of murder, victims of suicide, victims of drug overdose. Those are not statistics. Those are lives that are forever lost to tragedy.
The Kayla Hamilton Act restores basic safeguards. It requires background checks. It seeks criminal records from home countries. It puts public safety first.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule. I urge my colleagues to support the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to today's rule.
While Americans are going into the holiday season struggling with rising prices and the high cost of living, with just days left before health insurance premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million Americans, while the President is leading the country to war with Venezuela, and yet another mass shooting has claimed the lives of young Americans, Republicans are using the final legislative days of 2025 to prioritize six unserious, make-work bills.
They are using precious floor time and resources to put forward messaging bills with no chance of passing, bills that have nothing to do with the reality that most Americans are living
But that is what this country has come to expect from House Republicans who have used their control of the House as a vehicle for PR stunts and to pick the pockets of working people in order to line the pockets of the wealthy and the well connected.
Under Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, 2025 has been a year of chaos, controversy, and corruption in which every day brings a new self-inflicted crisis.
While most of this chaos has originated from the White House, congressional Republicans are no less responsible, for they have aided and abetted this administration's agenda at every turn. How humiliating that in recent weeks, staff at the White House have openly mocked the subservience of House Republicans.
From day one of this term, Republicans in Washington have made clear they are here to serve their donors, to serve billionaires and big business, and not the American public. They spent the first half of the year ramming through their partisan big, ugly bill which gave permanent, budget-busting tax cuts to the rich while canceling Medicaid and SNAP for millions of Americans.
They continually prioritize big business and culture wars in legislation like the bills before us in today's rule, a series of bills that put their thumb on the scale for the oil and gas industry at the expense of Americans' health and the stewardship of the environment. Republicans are deliberately choosing to raise Americans' healthcare costs because they refuse to extend the ACA tax credits.
Americans everywhere are pleading with Congress to lower the cost of living as families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, childcare, and even groceries. Trump campaigned on a promise that he would lower prices on day one, but once in office, he has put tariffs on almost every good coming into the U.S., directly raising the prices for nearly everything we buy.
Whether it is food at the grocery store, home appliances, a new car, Trump's trade wars and tariffs have made everything more expensive. These trade wars have undermined key portions of our economy. The tariffs have already cost us nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs, and our tourism industry is suffering greatly.
Making matters worse, Congress could end the tariffs today. The House could vote today on any number of Senate-passed resolutions that would end the Trump tariffs, but Speaker Johnson has blocked every one of those bills. House Republicans have now voted on four separate occasions to block legislation that would end the Trump tariffs. They have repeatedly doubled down on that decision to keep your prices high.
But it is not just the tariffs. Just last week, House Republicans blocked bipartisan legislation that could have become law, that would have built new homes all over America, lowered rents, and made mortgages more affordable.
With healthcare, Americans are seeing the biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years, yet the Republican majority is actively opposing extension of the ACA tax credits that lower premiums for 22 million Americans.
While Republicans fail to act on affordability, they are also conspicuously silent on the near daily corruption emanating from this White House. Trump has pardoned hundreds of criminals convicted of serious offenses, including drug traffickers, money launderers, and fraudsters, depriving Americans of justice and restitution and enabling at least some of those pardoned to commit further crimes.
In many of these pardons, they have come at a price. Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is convicted of trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Ostensibly, this pardon will influence a Presidential election in Honduras.
Trump pardoned the CEO of Binance after he made a $2 billion investment in the President's company, World Liberty Financial. Nearly a dozen well-connected individuals, many of them donors to the President's campaign or investors in his companies, have also received pardons.
Trump has also shown a curious leniency to major criminals. He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who ran one of the biggest drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations on the deep web.
The President also dropped criminal charges against multiple MS-13 gang leaders in order to help cover up a corruption scandal for his ally, Salvadoran President Bukele.
He has directed Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers to drop investigations of serious crimes, including drug and human trafficking, in order to focus on immigration enforcement, letting countless criminals off the hook.
Of course, we can't forget the yearslong coverup of the Epstein files. On the campaign trail, Trump and his allies swore they would release the Epstein files, but once in office, they have blocked the release for 11 months. Ultimately, it has taken an act of Congress to force the President to release those files. The deadline to release the Epstein files is this Friday, but we still haven't seen a single document from the White House or the Department of Justice. Again, all of this begs the question: What exactly is this White House trying to hide?
All this time, while Trump is pardoning drug traffickers and dropping charges against gang members and violent insurrectionists who assaulted cops, congressional Republicans have been silent. If you ask Speaker Johnson about it, as the press has, he will tell you he has no idea what you are talking about.
Republicans are silent as Trump and his White House cause crisis after crisis. Trump and Hegseth are leading us into another forever war in Venezuela. The President has called for the execution of Democratic Members of Congress. The administration has withheld FEMA funding for disaster victims but gave a $40 billion bailout to Argentinean hedge funds.
Administration officials are wasting taxpayer dollars to fly around the country for personal business and photo ops. ICE and Border Patrol have detained more than 170 American citizens, including nearly 20 children, and that total is growing by the day.
The national debt is over $2 trillion higher in just this year alone. It is all so insulting to you, to me, to every American, to see this flagrant corruption and shameful mismanagement on a daily basis. House Republicans seem to have priorities so completely at odds with the needs of the American people that they have ignored all year the kitchen-table issues that American families struggle with every single day.
Instead, they have spent their time in Washington, when they have actually come to Washington, working on industry handouts, gold-plated ballrooms, and stirring up insane culture wars.
You deserve better. America deserves better. We deserve a functioning Congress that actually works for the American people, not just the wealthy and well connected.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think we are now approaching about year 9 of Democrats suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. No matter what is before this House, no matter what the rule before us today actually contains, my colleagues across the aisle find a way to make this about President Trump, not the substance of the legislation, not the issues before the American people, not the suffering the last 4 years have brought on them, not the costs facing families, not the failures of their own record. It is just about Trump to them.
While they are fixated on that, the American people have paid the price. In 2022, while Democrats were consumed by their latest Trump obsession, families were being crushed by the worst inflation spikes in 40 years after trillions upon trillions in Democratic spending overheated the economy.
Groceries, gas, and rent all skyrocketed. You didn't hear a peep on the other side of the aisle. Democrats didn't fix it. They didn't even acknowledge it. Then they doubled down on it and made it worse.
In 2024, with the border wide open and millions of illegal aliens pouring into our communities across the country, Democrats once again ignored the top concerns of American families.
Instead of securing the border or addressing affordability, they doubled down on the same, tired narrative claiming that President Trump was a threat to democracy. You will hear more of it today, Mr. Speaker.
The voters rejected it. They lost the electoral college, they lost the popular vote, and they lost every swing State on the table. Since then, Democrats haven't learned a thing. They have spent their time defending wasteful programs, failed policies, and bureaucratic overreach all while opposing every serious effort by President Trump and House Republicans to clean up the mess that they left behind.
Yet here we are today hearing the same hysterics. The American people have tuned it out. They know what actually matters: trying to lower costs, keeping communities safe, securing reliable energy, and restoring accountability in Washington. That is exactly what the bills under this rule are about.
While Democrats rehash old grievances and relive the same political fixation for the ninth year in a row, Republicans are focused on delivering results for working families. After 4 years of the economic mismanagement under Democratic leadership, Democrats are suddenly pretending to care about trade, tariffs, and the American economy. It is quite a performance. The American people see right through it.
For 4 years, Democrats told families not to believe their own eyes as inflation hit 40-year highs, as their grocery bills exploded, and as their energy costs soared. They brushed off concerns from workers and manufacturers who were watching their jobs disappear overseas and while Washington signed one bad trade deal after another.
They told Americans that surrendering leverage was smart trade policy even as foreign countries flooded our markets and shut their own doors for American producers.
Now President Trump is back in office and trying to right the ship. He is delivering results, and Democrats are scrambling to rewrite history.
Under President Trump's America First trade agenda, the trade deficit has narrowed to its smallest level since the mid-2020 year, down more than 35 percent over last year alone. Exports are up 6 percent year- over-year, reaching their second highest level on record. Inflation- adjusted exports of consumer goods are the largest ever. The trade deficit with China has narrowed to its second smallest since 2009. In the third quarter of 2025, real exports grew 4.1 percent annual rate while imports fell 5 percent, adding roughly 1 full percentage point to real GDP growth.
In November alone, the trade deficit was cut by more than one-half compared to last year, driven by rising tariff revenues as President Trump secured better terms for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.
This didn't happen by accident. For decades, weak trade policies allowed foreign governments to exploit American openness while protecting their own industries.
President Trump ended that arrangement by using tariffs as leverage. He forced countries to come to the table. They have, and they are continuing to.
Since announcing his trade agenda in April, President Trump has secured new and improved trade deals with major partners covering more than one-half of the global GDP, spanning Europe, Asia, and the Americas. At the same time, companies are responding by committing trillions of dollars in new investment, bringing jobs back here at home, rebuilding supply chains, and putting American workers first again.
Mr. Speaker, shouldn't that be what we are working on here?
I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker, but today's debate is not about relitigating trade policy or listening to Democrats pretend to suddenly discover economic responsibility. Today we are focused on the six bills under this rule, bills that reflect the same commonsense approach that President Trump has applied to trade, strengthening domestic production, lowering costs, restoring reliability, and undoing the damage of the Biden years. That is the work before us today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I think the point we are trying to make is that this shouldn't be about economic policy. The Republican leadership's refusal to address the Trump tariffs and the damage they have inflicted upon our economy and upon American families' pocketbooks should be the topic before the House instead of these makeweight bills that are never going to become law.
Mr. Speaker, at the start of 2025, the Republicans knew there were two big tax provisions due to expire at the end of this year, now, within the next 10 days. One of them was the 2017 Trump tax cuts which overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans, and the second was the ACA tax credits that helped millions of Americans afford health insurance. This has been known to everybody all year.
Now, our Republican colleagues made the choice in their big, ugly bill, which they spent so much time and energy on this summer, to extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and they have also made the intentional choice to let the ACA tax credits expire. In doing so, they are causing the premiums for 22 million Americans to skyrocket. It is likely that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage this year due to our Republican colleagues' failure, refusal, in fact, to address that issue.
Mr. Speaker, when we hear our Republican colleagues talk about their healthcare bill that they are trying to bring to the floor this week, know that their legislation will not renew the ACA tax credits. It will not lower premiums, and it will not lower costs.
Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the bill is simply new paperwork requirements for pharmacy benefit managers, and the parts of the bill that do involve healthcare costs are horrible. They basically want to sell Americans junk insurance policies, and people know about these. These are the policies that have low sticker costs but terrible coverage when you need it, Mr. Speaker.
We really just have been imploring our colleagues to come to the table to try to do what the American people need them to do so that Americans have health coverage when they need it, and we have not seen them be willing to do that.
That is why we have a discharge petition sitting there at the desk. We just need four Republicans to join all of the Democrats in the House to force a vote to extend the ACA tax credits, and we would invite them to do so.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 6074, which would extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years, through 2028.
Mr. Speaker, for months, Democrats have sounded the alarm about the expiring enhanced premiums, urging the Republican majority to join us in extending these premiums before the end of the year so that all of our constituents can get the healthcare coverage they deserve.
Millions of Americans have already received notices from their health plan that their premiums are going to skyrocket starting January 1, 2026, just a few days from now, in some cases by over $1,000 a month. The median income in my district is about $80,000 for a family of four. They can't afford an additional $12,000 a year for health insurance.
However, there are only 3 legislative days remaining to fix this problem before the health insurance costs of over 20 million Americans rise, but this Republican majority has ignored and blocked any effort to extend those credits. The majority even told their own moderates they won't get a vote on the floor to extend them.
I am happy to give them that vote right now. We can defeat the previous question, and we can consider a bill that would extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years.
There is no more time to waste. The deadlines are all passed. We have to act now for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania?
Mr. Speaker, it was with interest that I heard the remarks of my colleague from New York. I just wanted to correct a few things as someone who just won one of those swings seats that was in play last year.
I would say that that was not a mandate, but the Republicans did win Congress, they did win the Presidency, and I think that Republicans last year rightly focused on inflation, the cost-of-living, and the economy as key issues that Americans are facing.
Now, I represent a very wealthy district. The median income in my district is about $130,000. Even in my district right now, people are suffering. When I go visit my food banks, the usage right now is at record highs. This is directly related to the policies that were in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it is Orwellianly named by our Republican colleagues.
The tariffs and the OBBB in combination have caused costs to skyrocket, and inflation right now is as high as it has ever been, as high as it ever was under Biden.
They are seeing their electric costs go up because of the giveaways to utilities and the crackdown on renewable energies, very cheap forms of energy. In places like California, they are seeing their grocery prices go up because of the tariffs. They are set to see their health insurance costs go up massively.
When I go out there and I talk to my families, it is not as if they have one budget for utilities, one budget for food, and one budget for health insurance. They have a budget, and they are struggling right now to pay for things. They are now going to see in the State of California, in my district, their health insurance costs, if they are purchasing it on an exchange, go up between 50 percent to 200 percent or more as was announced by Covered California just last month.
That is a cost that people just can't afford, no matter how much they are making. I know the billionaires do pretty well under this Presidency, under this Republican-controlled Congress, but regular people, even people who are making a good amount of money are struggling to get by right now, to pay those bills.
I have talked to too many people in my district who are making that hard decision. Many of them, we know, will drop their health insurance because they just can't afford to pay it. They need food. They need to keep the lights on. They need to buy gas to get to work. Consequently, they are going to drop health insurance.
That means that we will have more families who are one catastrophic illness or injury away from bankruptcy, something that is far too common. You can multiply that by millions and millions of households across this country right now because millions of households are facing that same dilemma.
I urge my Republican colleagues right now to ignore what their President is doing. He is focused on the ballroom. He is focused on building out our golf courses here in D.C., according to yesterday's news. He is focused on foreign affairs, giving money to Argentina, and blowing up boats off the coast of Venezuela.
What I would urge my Republican colleagues to start focusing on is the cost of things right now. We have a way to do that, a bipartisan initiative. We would love it to be bipartisan, if you all would join us in just giving a clean 3-year extension of the ACA tax credits. This is something that would give immediate relief to millions of families out there that are seeking to lower their costs.
Now, I know we have this vote coming up on this package of healthcare bills. I would say it is very complicated stuff, lots of random proposals in there. There is clearly an attack on women's reproductive rights and access to contraception. That is a key part of what these healthcare bills will do.
What they do not do in any way, shape, or form is address the fact that people are going to pay thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars more for their health insurance because of Republican policies.
You have a chance right now to do right by the American people to try to rectify the wrongs that your policies have created. This has nothing to do with Trump. It has nothing to do with Biden. It has to do with an opportunity right now to get some bipartisan legislation passed.
This is going to save lives. We are literally talking about people in your district, in my district, in Mary Gay Scanlon's district. We have a chance to really help save lives right now. Even in districts like mine--again, a wealthy district--I have talked to many people right now who are set to lose their health insurance, set to lose their healthcare.
Whether they have kids with cancer or whether they have autistic children, they are struggling right now. We have a chance to show the American people that we can rise above partisan politics and do what is right. I think there is broad consensus on both sides of the aisle that extending the ACA tax credits is good policy. I urge them to join us.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to open up the text of the rule before us today, and for good measure the underlying legislation as well, and hit ``control F'' on the words Affordable Care Act. They will quickly see that despite their fixation on making everything about the topic, nowhere in this rule or the underlying legislation is the Affordable Care Act, ACA subsidies, or marketplace coverage mentioned.
However, the policies that they are working, and hopefully there will be further bipartisan discussions about, were set to expire by their own hand at the end of a 5-year window because it was COVID emergency spending. I don't think I am breaking any news here, but COVID is over. Something that Democrats don't seem to want to ever end is an unlimited spigot of public money devoted to an issue.
We have to get to the core reasons why health insurance for all, not just those that are on Affordable Care Act plans, but for people in private insurance, all the public expenditures through our Medicare and Medicaid programs, why is healthcare an explosive cost year over year?
That is going to take bipartisanship and working together and putting some of these petty fights aside, because even if we extended these credits for 3 years, as they would like, it doesn't solve the problem for the millions upon millions and tens of millions of Americans who are on private pay insurance.
We have to really get serious about affordability, health insurance affordability, and the cost of delivering our healthcare in this country. Their remedy to this problem is putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. It is an expiration that is by their own hand and own design because it was designed for COVID-era emergency spending.
As a reminder, the measures in this rule are straightforward and common sense: strengthening energy reliability and tackling affordability in this area, streamlining permitting so that infrastructure can actually get built, restoring certainty to domestic supply chains, trusting science over ideology in wildlife management, and advancing public safety measures that protect our communities.
These bills are about lowering costs, keeping the lights on, and restoring accountability. That is the agenda before us in this rule today. That is an important agenda to the American people and the affordability issues that stand before us and our future prosperity.
Democrats want to lecture us about being serious on energy, but the American people remember exactly what 4 years of Democratic energy policy delivered. Under President Biden, Democrats drove up costs, weakened our electrical grid, and forced the premature retirement of reliable baseload power. They flooded the market with mandates and subsidies picked by Washington, not by engineers, and then acted surprised when electricity prices spiked and grid operators started warning about blackouts.
When those prices spiked, the price of everything spiked because increased electricity and energy costs drive up the price of all goods and services. Families paid more, reliability got worse, and Democrats told Americans that somehow it was all worth it.
Now that President Trump is back in office and reversing that damage, Democrats suddenly claim that these
President Trump and House Republicans are doing what Democrats refused to do: streamlining permitting so that projects can actually get built, restoring common sense to environmental review, and prioritizing dispatchable power sources that actually keep the lights and the heat on in this country.
The truth is, Democrats don't have a serious answer to rising energy demand, grid reliability, or affordability. Their answer is just throw up a few more windmills and all will be well with the world. We can shutter every other power plant that has proven baseline power, and the windmills and solar panels will solve all the problems.
Their solution is always the same: more mandates, more subsidies, more regulation, and hope that the grid holds together by wishes and dreams, not by science and practicality.
Republicans are offering something different: policies grounded in reliability, affordability, and domestic American production so American families aren't left paying more while China builds coal plant after coal plant month after month and laughs all the way to the bank.
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this rule advances. The energy bills before us are commonsense measures to strengthen reliability, streamline approvals, and support American jobs as well as ensure that American families have access to affordable American power, not slogans, not lectures, not dreams and wishful thinking.
If my colleagues across the aisle are truly serious about lowering costs and securing Americans' energy future, they should stop posturing and support this rule because Americans don't need more talking points. They need the lights to stay on.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from New York that Congress needs to get serious about affordability both of everyday products and services but also health insurance, and that is why we have offered the amendments that we have and why we have been urging our colleagues across the aisle for months to address this issue.
However, as we focus on the rule today, which does not address affordability, there are a number of issues dealing with electricity prices. American households right now are paying record-high electricity prices, prices that have been rising, and most analysts are predicting will continue to rise more in 2026.
There is only one real way to lower electricity prices. That is to build more energy in the United States. Democrats did this, made serious efforts toward this when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. We provided a forward-looking mix of financial incentives to build more power from all sources but especially from wind and solar. Those measures have been embraced by the American people, and they have been embraced by our energy industries.
However, while our Republican colleagues say they want to lower electricity bills, they have actively torpedoed these efforts to build more domestic energy.
President Trump and congressional Republicans have rescinded nearly all the investment incentives from the IRA. As a result, we are seeing domestic power generation decreasing, household electricity costs rising, and thousands of good-paying jobs being effectively canceled.
At the same time, the big, beautiful bill gave huge handouts to the oil and gas industry. These are handouts that won't increase energy production but will simply pad the profits of Chevron and Exxon. This is the Republican energy agenda: higher prices for you, the consumer, and higher profits for the oil and gas industry.
It is an incentive that we see continued in some of the bills under consideration in this rule today, which will require that coal- generating electricity plants stay online even when they have outlived their usefulness and profitability. Meaning, once again, consumer costs go up, but the coal industry gets the benefit.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the aisle wants to paint these bills as giveaways, which is wild considering what Democrats themselves have already done.
Democrats passed a so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the most poorly named bill in the history of the Congress because it did nothing but skyrocket inflation. Everyone has the proof of that in their weekly grocery bills and their utility costs.
It happened on their watch. They dumped massive new spending on an overheated economy and helped drive the worst inflation in 40 years. That is just fact. That is indisputable. Despite the title, it didn't reduce any inflation, not even close.
What it did was create a massive subsidy pipeline for green energy companies, all tied to the People's Republic of China. Chinese firms, ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party, rushed in to take advantage of all these credits and the programs that Democrats set up. Apparently, that part has slipped their memory.
When House Republicans tried to add basic guardrails to stop those subsidies from flowing overseas to China, Democrats objected. They objected loudly, not quietly.
When Democrats are throwing around the word ``giveaway,'' it is fair to wonder whether they have forgotten their own record or are just hoping that everyone else is focused on something else.
Democrats are perfectly willing to outsource Americans' energy future and our national security to foreign adversaries to pursue their agenda.
Republicans are doing the opposite. We are strengthening domestic production. We are securing supply chains here at home in the United States and reducing our dependence on China.
That brings us back to the rule before us today. The six bills in this rule are focusing on restoring reliability, supporting domestic production, and streamlining permitting so that projects can actually move forward and lower costs for American taxpayers.
Mr. Speaker, that is the work before the House today, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard some well-intentioned debate from our Republican colleague today, but the fact remains that this week is being wasted on messaging bills that will not become law.
All year, Republicans have failed to act on affordability. They failed to bring down housing costs, to control inflation at the grocery store, or to lower electricity bills. They were elected to office to tackle these problems, but for an entire year, they have sat on their hands, opting for press conferences and tweets instead of legislation and dealmaking.
Earlier this year, Republicans ended healthcare coverage for 15 million Americans with their big, ugly bill. All this year, Republicans have blocked each and every effort to renew the ACA tax credits. Now, health insurance costs are at a 15-year high, and premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million people.
In my district and in most of America, electricity prices are through the roof. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has bent over backward for AI companies, cut billions of dollars in energy investments, and canceled major clean energy projects.
In Congress, Republicans' energy agenda continues to boost oil and gas profits but does nothing to actually lower bills.
This past weekend, America witnessed yet another mass shooting that took the lives of two and critically injured nine more. This year has seen 391 mass shootings. We have lost nearly 14,000 people to senseless gun violence. No matter how many times we see the same tragic story play out on the news, our Republican colleagues keep their heads in the sand and refuse to bring forward or endorse commonsense gun safety legislation, which the majority of Americans and law enforcement leaders support.
This term, Republicans have turned Congress into a rubberstamp for executive action. It is a major abdication of our constitutional responsibilities, and it has done irreparable damage to this institution. It is my sincere hope that 2026 brings new opportunities for bipartisan action on these pressing issues.
The American people deserve better than a President who governs by tweet and a Speaker who has neutered Congress' role in our constitutional order.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, the rule before us reflects a clear choice. After years of regulatory overreach, misplaced priorities, and Washington-knows- best policymaking, this House is taking steps to restore balance, accountability, and common sense.
The legislation considered under this rule addresses real problems Americans are facing: higher energy costs, delayed infrastructure, weakened supply chains, threats to grid reliability, and failures that put public safety at risk.
These bills do not eliminate environmental protections or public input. They simply require the Federal Government to act responsibly, plan for real-world consequences, and stop using endless process as an excuse for inaction.
Republicans are focused on getting things built, keeping the lights on for Americans, keeping the heat on, protecting communities, and strengthening America's economic and national security. That is what the American people expect, and that is what this rule and the underlying legislation advances. I strongly support the rule before us today.
The material previously referred to by Ms. Scanlon is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 951 Offered by Ms. Scanlon of Pennsylvania
Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4776, Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1366, Mining Regulatory Clarity Act; Providing For...
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on the resolution (H. Res. 951) providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4776) to amend the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to clarify ambiguous provisions and facilitate a more efficient, effective, and timely environmental review process; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1366) to provide for the location of multiple hardrock mining mill sites, to establish the Abandoned Hardrock Mine Fund, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 845) to require the Secretary of the Interior to reissue regulations removing the gray wolf from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife under the Endangered Species Act of 1973; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3616) to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review regulations that may affect the reliable operation of the bulk-power system; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3632) to amend the Federal Power Act to adjust the requirements for orders, rules, and regulations relating to furnishing adequate service, to require owners or operators of generating facilities to provide notice of planned retirements of certain electric generating units, and for other purposes; and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4371) to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous question.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 215, nays 207, not voting 11, as follows:
Mr. WHITESIDES, Ms. PEREZ, Messrs. HOYER and SUOZZI changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 951, I call up the bill (H.R. 4371) to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary, printed in the bill, is adopted and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.
The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Fry) and the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal) each will control 30 minutes.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4371.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from South Carolina?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this legislation, H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act.
This legislation, at its core, is about common sense, in that if we had done a simple fix like this, Kayla would still be alive. It is something that I think my Democrat counterparts have lost track of during the last administration.
During the Judiciary Committee hearing, Kayla was referred to by one of my Democrat colleagues, who repulsively called her a ``random dead person.''
Kayla was a beloved daughter. She loved life. She loved her family. She had a cat named ``Oreo'' that she cared for. She loved her God. She was a young woman whose future was stolen from her by someone who never should have been in this country to begin with it.
In 2022, during the Biden-Harris administration, Kayla's killer illegally crossed the southwest border as an unaccompanied alien child, what they commonly refer to as a ``UAC.'' Walter Javier Martinez, a 16- year-old Salvadoran national, admitted to authorities that his aunt paid a guide $4,000 to smuggle him into the United States.
As is required by law with most UACs, Walter was then transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. Instead of conducting a basic criminal or gang affiliation check, HHS instead focused on programming and wellness activities while missing clear signs of gang involvement.
Despite incomplete information and the sponsor's lack of legal status in the country themselves, HHS approved the placement. Martinez ran away within weeks from his sponsor, becoming 1 of more than 150,000 UACs that the last administration lost track of.
According to his sponsor, months later, Walter left to: ``do what he was doing in his home country--get in trouble on the streets and hang out with gang members.''
The Federal Government just needed to make a phone call to El Salvador. That is all that would have solved this. Instead, Kayla was brutally murdered because the government failed to vet Walter, a known MS-13 gang member with gang tattoos and a criminal history.
The Kayla Hamilton Act will help to ensure that another murder like Kayla's does not happen. First, this bill requires HHS to find out for UACs who are over 12 years of age if there is a criminal history or gang affiliation or gang activity in the child's home country.
Opponents falsely claim that the bill mandates strip searches. It simply allows checks for gang tattoos during routine medical intake. This stuff already happens. We are just asking that somebody ascertain whether that tattoo is related to a gang.
We also ask that they check their home country and see if they have a criminal background. We are not doing that. This is common sense.
Under this bill, gang-affiliated UACs would be housed in a secure facility designed to protect them from themselves and others. Opponents say this provision will lead to the indefinite detention of children.
In reality, UACs will be held only for the pendency of their immigration proceedings. That is it. When an alien is in a secure placement, their immigration proceedings generally are resolved expeditiously, within weeks or months.
Next, the bill bars illegal aliens from serving as sponsors. I think that is a key component to protect the children themselves. UACs should not be placed in the home of a person with no immigration permanence in this country, where their caregiver may be deported at any moment. That is not a stable environment for a child to live or thrive.
The Democrats say that this bill will cause family separation. This reform ends the perverse incentive that encourages illegal alien parents to have their children smuggled across the border. That practice is happening right now. This has been happening for years, particularly under the last administration. We should not be complicit in the smuggling of children into this country. No more.
In the last administration, the UACs were placed with sponsors before required background checks were even finalized. Mr. Speaker, that is kind of the point, right? For a UAC, we are not going to place a child in somebody's home where we don't know who they are and don't know their background. That is actually what was happening under the last administration. In some cases, criminal and sex offender checks were never initiated.
H.R. 4371 will end this insanity. By enshrining in law rigorous background check requirements, this will ensure UACs will not be placed with criminals or child abusers.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this very important legislation to take a first step in reforming our very flawed UAC Program.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4371.
Kayla Hamilton's death was a senseless tragedy, and my heart goes out to her family and her loved ones. Every single one of us wants to do anything we can to make sure such a thing doesn't happen again, and I understand the impulse to do just anything to try to prevent this. Responsible governance means working together to create sensible solutions, not weaponizing tragedies to push through political priorities.
Under the guise of ``preventing child trafficking,'' this bill would subject unaccompanied kids to abusive practices, like invasive bodily searches. It would make it harder to release them from detention, in spite of the protections that Congress established in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That was a bill that was passed by both Chambers by unanimous consent.
I wish that we were working on real reforms that are needed, especially as President Trump has set aside longstanding protections for unaccompanied children. Right now, these kids are spending more time in government custody than ever, amidst Trump's campaign of mass kidnappings and disappearances.
An NIH study found that 75 to 80 percent of unaccompanied children are victims of human trafficking. Instead of treating them like victims of crime, this bill treats them like criminals.
The majority claims that there are no security procedures in place for unaccompanied children, but that is simply not true. Since 2019, CBP has taken the fingerprints of unaccompanied children who are 14 and over. This policy
Additionally, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, they have ``procedures in place to obtain background information on the unaccompanied alien child from the referring Federal agency to assess whether the child is a danger to self or others.'' They use this background information to determine where to place unaccompanied children.
Furthermore, under the Flores settlement agreement, which the Republicans have been trying over and over again to overturn, children are allowed to be held in detention if they are convicted or charged with a criminal offense other than petty offenses, were adjudicated as a delinquent or are in delinquency proceedings, engaged in violent or disruptive conduct or threats, escaped from another facility or otherwise are a flight risk, or other compelling circumstances.
It is disingenuous to pretend that unaccompanied children are all unvetted criminals, as this bill seems to do. Rather than fix some of the very real problems in the immigration system, this bill doubles down on cruelty, subjecting children to strip searches to look for ``gang tattoos,'' and it would force them into prison-like ``secure facilities'' if they are deemed to have a gang tattoo or be involved in a gang.
Unfortunately, we have seen what this administration considers to be ``gang tattoos.'' They sent Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who was tortured by the Maduro regime, to the notorious Salvadoran gulag, CECOT, saying his tattoo of the Real Madrid soccer logo meant that he was Tren de Aragua.
The administration claimed that Neri Jose Alvarado Borges, a baker and asylum seeker, was a member of Tren de Aragua, due to his tattoo honoring someone with autism. They disappeared him to CECOT, too--of course, without any due process.
It is also important to note that under current policy, adult immigrants detained by our government cannot be strip-searched without reasonable suspicion. This bill doesn't have any similar guardrails. It actually would treat kids in custody worse than adults.
The bill also denies kids the ability to be placed with their parents if they are not U.S. citizens or green card holders. Preventing kids from being placed with their relatives will deny them the ability to go to loving homes and force them to languish in government custody for months. This will not help prevent child trafficking. It will help promote family separation.
The bill also forces HHS to tell DHS the immigration status of anyone who lives in the home of a kid's sponsor, aiding President Trump's efforts to prioritize deporting moms and dads over murderers and deadly criminals.
Since President Trump's inauguration, countless stories have emerged about ICE agents arresting parents and conducting intimidating ``wellness checks'' as a pretext for taking unaccompanied children and their guardians into custody. This bill is clearly aimed at supporting that project so that ICE can meet Stephen Miller's cruel 3,000 immigration arrests per day target.
The Trump administration already treats unaccompanied children horribly, and this bill would only make things worse. I have personally gone and observed the docket at immigration court for kids. It is called the kids' docket. What I saw would horrify most Americans: kids as young as 5, one clinging to a stuffed animal, trying to represent themselves in a complicated legal proceeding in a language that they struggle to understand.
Can you imagine a 5-year-old child who doesn't speak English trying to represent themselves in court, being instructed by a judge that you, as a child, have the right to call witnesses and cross-examine the government's witnesses, going up against a seasoned ICE trial attorney, a full-grown adult who has gone to law school, and trying to challenge what they say about you as a child?
It sounds like an absurd nightmare, but this is reality for too many children. Our system already does a great disservice to these kids, and this bill would just make it worse.
It is also laughable to claim that the Republican Party is focused on eradicating child trafficking. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the agents in Homeland Security Investigations, who are normally tasked with going after child traffickers, have been detailed to Enforcement and Removal Operations. Instead of working on targeted takedowns of dangerous criminals, they are patrolling the streets to go after random people they think might be undocumented because they look Latino or speak Spanish.
Thanks to the Republican Party, Homeland Security investigators worked approximately 33 percent fewer hours on child exploitation cases this year compared to last year.
If we really want to protect kids, we need to address their number one cause of death: not immigrants, but guns. This week, following the anniversary of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook, we are mourning the deaths of innocents at two mass shooting events. Here in America, at Brown University, two people were murdered, and an entire campus was traumatized, including several students who had previously been in other school shootings.
Despite the President and FBI claiming otherwise, that shooter is still at large, yet I don't see any effort in this body to take up the issue of sensible gun reforms. These mass shootings at schools across the country cannot be normalized. Let's finally address gun violence and get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.
We also witnessed a horrific anti-Semitic mass shooting at Australia's Bondi Beach that left 15 people dead, including a holocaust survivor who died saving his wife. The only reason the death toll wasn't higher is because Australia banned semiautomatic weapons and shooters could only fire one bullet at a time.
Gun violence like this is very rare in Australia because it does have some of the strongest gun violence prevention laws in the world. Yet, still the government there is talking about taking further action to regulate guns and to take on anti-Semitism. That is what we should be doing if we care about protecting our kids.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I prefer to keep the focus on the actual bill and not distracting arguments on a myriad of topics.
I think it is important to remember how we got to this place. We got to this place because of the failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration that imported millions of people into this country, that smugglers, paid in cash by parents in other countries, smuggled kids into our country.
Many of those kids, probably the vast majority of them, are innocent kids. But the Democrats in the House, specifically in the Judiciary Committee, seem to focus that that is the entire picture. That is not the entire picture.
Walter Javier Martinez was a gang member, and we didn't know it. Our own Federal Government, that is tasked with protecting the lives of the citizens of this country, did not know because they never called his country of origin. If they had, instead of doing paper-mache or other things they were doing for this kid that came into the country, they would have found out from his country that, yes, he has a history of gang activity. Yes, if we had screened him for gang tattoos, we would have found that, yes, he has a gang tattoo.
All we are saying in this legislation is that we have a little bit of common sense in this country. At the end of the day, when somebody comes in, the vast majority of these kids will probably go to a sponsor and not be in some sort of secure facility. But for the kids who are over 12 and under 18 who have a history of criminal actions, who have a gang tattoo on their forehead or another part of their body, all we are saying is maybe we shouldn't put those kids in our streets, right? Because every week seems to be another story, another Kayla Hamilton.
For the 3 years that I have been a part of this body, what I have seen is that the other side of the aisle buries their head in the sand to the real malaise that is going on in our streets
Why don't we get a little bit smarter about the things that we do in this country? Maybe we wouldn't have so many Kayla Hamiltons. I think that is important.
On the flip side of this equation, we know that the last administration lost kids, hundreds of thousands of kids. They did not know where they were. That is unconscionable to me that we were so busy--HHS, with Secretary Becerra, was so busy trying to set up his Ford assembly line that he was pushing people out into our communities who run away and who cause mayhem in our streets. That is alarming to me that our Federal Government would not be more responsible.
Can you imagine going to a State family court and saying to the Judge: Don't worry about the background checks; just send the kid out. Don't worry about the background checks on the sponsor. Just place them in this home, because at least he has got a roof over his head. We don't know anything about the people he is going to live with, but just place him up there. That State court judge would be thrown out of his position in a minute.
Somehow it is okay for the Federal Government to not do its job here. I think that is reckless. I think that is completely irresponsible, not only to the citizens who expect safety and security from their Federal Government but to the kids who are here.
Why would we give a child to a sponsor who we don't know anything about their background? We haven't done the sexual background checks; the sex registry checks. We haven't done the criminal background checks to see who these sponsors are. We are just going to let the kid go out there.
By doing nothing, that is exactly what the Democrats are arguing right now. I think that is irresponsible on so many levels.
Part of this is to protect future Kayla Hamiltons from happening in this country by unscrupulous and dangerous minors who are in this country. The other is to protect the kids themselves from sponsors who haven't been properly vetted.
If we care about the safety and well-being of children, which I hope that we all do, this is an easy lift, that our Federal Government would have a little bit more common sense, that we wouldn't set up a Ford assembly line and push people out into our communities and lose track of where they are.
In the case of Walter, think about this: He goes to his sponsor and within weeks he is gone. The Federal Government had no idea that he left, for months. The only way that they found out was after he killed Kayla Hamilton, months later.
The sponsor didn't say anything. Walter didn't turn up anywhere until he killed somebody. We didn't know about it? We didn't know about these things? I think that is reckless.
This bill is common sense. I think this country wants a little bit of common sense. I think they deserve a little bit of common sense. They want their Federal Government to work for them. They want to feel like when a child comes to this country, however he or she came to this country, that we would vet them before we place them in our communities and allow them to cause mayhem.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my good friend.
Mr. Speaker, during the 4 years of the Democrats' open border nightmare, some half million unvetted, unaccompanied minors were trafficked into our country by our own government and left with poorly vetted or unvetted sponsors. The government lost track of 150,000 of them. This is a dark chapter in our history that must always be remembered and never be repeated.
So far, despite the vicious and sometimes violent opposition of the Democrats and their Antifa auxiliary, the Trump administration has now rescued 62,000 of these children who had fallen into the underworld of illegal sex and labor trafficking.
Many of these unaccompanied alien children weren't children at all. Some were gang members or adults pretending to be minors or both. Since the Biden administration's priority was to traffic as many as possible into our country, they didn't care to check. Biden's HHS Secretary compared the process to an assembly line, and he threatened to fire anyone who slowed it down to ask embarrassing questions like: Is this person with gang tattoos a member of a gang? Are they even a child?
Now, this bill is named after Kayla Hamilton. She paid the ultimate price for the Democrats' open borders. She was found in her own bedroom raped, tied up, and then strangled with a phone cord. Her murder was recorded on her boyfriend's voicemail when she desperately called him for help.
Kayla was just 20 years old. She was murdered by a 17-year-old MS-13 gang member who Biden's administration welcomed into our country. The police investigating her murder noticed that her assailant had gang tattoos. One call to El Salvadoran authorities confirmed he was a known MS-13 gang member, something that Federal officials never bothered to ask as they recklessly placed him in Kayla's neighborhood.
The Trump administration has stopped this madness, thank God, and ICE is now trying to locate every gang member that the Democrats allowed into our country in order to prevent future atrocities. ICE is being blocked every step of the way by the Democrats and their violent street mobs that they have incited and encouraged.
But what if another Democrat becomes President? Their leaders all backed these policies. That is why this bill is so desperately needed-- not for future presidents like Trump, pledged and determined to uphold our immigration laws, but for future Democrats who are pledged to undermine or ignore them.
If this bill had been law, Biden would have been powerless to unleash these horrors upon our people. This bill requires every unaccompanied alien child to be fully vetted and detained if they are suspected to be criminals or gang members. It also requires every sponsor to be similarly vetted, to prevent the rampant child abuse and trafficking that was aided and abetted by the Biden administration with the support of the Democrats in this Congress.
This must never happen again. This bill assures that whoever is President, it cannot happen again.
Mr. Speaker, let me just remind the majority that the Office of Refugee Resettlement subjects all potential sponsors of unaccompanied kids to an assessment. That assessment includes numerous factors, including the sponsor's relationship to the child, the sponsor's motivation for seeking to care for the child, and any special vulnerabilities that the child has.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Rivas).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the bill we are debating today is a bad bill. It is a bad bill that will harm vulnerable children, do nothing to fix our immigration system, and embolden Trump to continue wreaking havoc in our communities.
Republicans are exploiting a tragedy to push forth a bill that undermines and strips away critical rights and protections for vulnerable children.
H.R. 4371 treats immigrant children like criminals and prevents unaccompanied minors from being reunited with their families. It even subjects children as young as 12 to strip searches. These are kids who are escaping unspeakable horrors and traumas in search for a better life in our country. We should be helping them with food, shelter, and resources to thrive, not subjecting them to more trauma, cruelty, and abuse.
As we have seen, this administration cannot be trusted to care for our most vulnerable. Yet Republicans want to grant the administration more power to continue enacting its cruelty anti-immigrant agenda across the country.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4371 goes against our core values as a country, and I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, just briefly, in response, I appreciate the comments, but I wish that the gentlewoman from California would have been in the Judiciary Committee hearing to learn what the law actually says. It is something that she
She said that kids are subject to strip searches under this bill. Mr. Speaker, we already do medical evaluations of children when they come into this country. That is already in practice. All we are saying is that when there is a tattoo on your shoulder or on your forehead that is a gang tattoo, then maybe we shouldn't send you into the streets.
They said that this bill is anti-children somehow, that it keeps children from being separated from their families. If there is somebody who is smuggled across our border who has a gang affiliation or prior gang convictions or charges in their country of origin, then maybe we shouldn't unite them with their family in this country when they are a danger to themselves and to the rest of society.
I appreciate the comments, but I think a little bit of homework and due diligence would have made those remarks a lot more effective.
I think it was said that the sponsors already receive background checks. Yes, presumably, they do. However, in these cases what we saw during the Biden-Harris administration was while the background checks were ongoing and not yet complete, we were sending kids to houses with sponsors without background checks.
That is the rub. That is the problem. That is what this bill will fix so that we no longer have the lawlessness that we saw in the last 4 years.
Mr. Speaker, we are less than 10 days away from Christmas, a day in which many celebrate the birth of Jesus, a refugee.
In regard to the hypocrisy of those who would quote Scripture asserting the preciousness of children while they pursue new, cruel punishments for child refugees, I find that not just hypocritical but despicable.
This administration and the Republicans have used their power not to protect children but, instead, to strip unaccompanied children who come to this country fleeing danger, looking for safety or protection. Now with H.R. 4371, Republicans are treating unaccompanied immigrant children like criminals. They are putting them in prison. They are subjecting them to invasive physical exams, and they are keeping them away from their families.
It is not surprising, since profiling, criminalizing, and physically assaulting Black, Brown, and indigenous children is a shameful legacy written into the DNA of this country, and subjecting children to strip searches is an unsurprising tactic of the party that fought tooth and nail to protect pedophiles.
However, none of that predictableness makes it any less despicable.
Mr. Speaker, do you know someone else who is also willing to sacrifice his humanity to attempt to secure his security? Do you know who?
It is Herod.
I am pretty sure he is the villain in the Christmas story my colleagues claim is so sacred.
Mr. Speaker, we have to choose to believe that another world is possible. We must use every tool at our disposal to protect our vulnerable children and build a world that affirms our shared humanity and ensures that people have safety.
This bill criminalizes children and creates dangerous precedent that only makes them more vulnerable.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, and I urge them to join me in championing legislation like the Family Reunification Act and the Upholding Protections for Unaccompanied Children Act.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here stunned and astonished for 1 minute that just 1 second ago I talked about what the law was, and despite that, the gentlewoman from Illinois comes forward to, again, repeat the same old, tired hackneyed lies that they have been perpetuating for months about this bill.
If they want to complain about theses strip searches that they say occur or are occurring under this bill, maybe they should go talk to the Member of their conference who wrote the original law that processed this: the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That was a Zoe Lofgren bill.
They want to complain about the medical evaluations that happen right now under a bill that they wrote, and they want to blame Republicans.
This kind of reminds me of: The economy is the Republicans' fault, but they are the ones who caused the inflation crisis under Joe Biden. The border is secure, but we saw millions of people illegally come into this country causing mayhem. Housing is too expensive, but they have regulated all businesses in this country into the ground in the last administration.
These are things that they have caused.
They want to talk about how we can perfect the medical evaluations of minors who come into this country. Fine, we can talk about that. However, I think there has to be a little bit of ownership for a minute that they are the ones who created the dang law, not us.
All we are saying is that when you go through that medical evaluation, Mr. Speaker, when you come into this country and you are screened, that we just look for gang tattoos.
The hyperbole is, quite frankly, disturbing and absurd. There was one member of the Democratic Judiciary Committee who said that kids were going to have a colonoscopy because of this. The last time I checked, Mr. Speaker, you can't get a tattoo on your colon. That is not how this works. We are just saying that when you go through this medical evaluation, Mr. Speaker, that somebody checks and says that they have a tattoo. They have a tattoo on their shoulder, on their forehead, on their neck, on their ear, below their eye, I don't know.
When we identify that and it looks like a gang tattoo, then maybe we shouldn't release that person into our streets. I think a little bit of intellectual honesty would go a long way. If they want to talk about medical evaluations and whether we should do them or not, good, then write a bill that amends the bill that they already wrote that became law in 2008.
Mr. Speaker, let me just remind my colleagues on the other side that a medical examination is different from subjecting someone to a bodily examination looking for tattoos. A medical examination is also very different from saying: I see a tattoo on the forehead or some visible part of the neck. We don't allow adults to be strip-searched. We should not allow children to be strip-searched.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this atrocious bill which codifies Trump's family separation policy, throws immigrant children in prisons indefinitely, and subjects them to traumatic, invasive strip searches.
Despite the gentleman from South Carolina only being here for 5 minutes, he does not remember or is aware of the implementation of the family separation policy in the first Trump term that exposes them to traumatic, invasive strip searches.
Trump promised to get rid of the worst of the worst. Instead, he is imprisoning innocent children. He is deporting Venezuelans who have lawful status through TPS to a criminal regime that they fled out of fear whose leader, Trump, has declared a terrorist leader.
You just cannot make this stuff up, Mr. Speaker.
The point of this bill is to dehumanize and normalize increasingly cruel and unusual treatment and give even more power to the very officials who are already abusing it.
The gentleman from South Carolina refers to affected individuals in this bill as UACs. That is a way to dehumanize and avoid using the appropriate term, children.
If this bill becomes law, it would cause tens of thousands of children as young as 12 to be ripped from their families by masked men, whisked away
Afterward, they could be jailed indefinitely, with no trial, no due process, and no oversight. It is not judges in charge. It is Homeland Security Secretary Noem deciding their fate.
Expending law enforcement resources on imprisoning thousands of children instead of targeting criminals won't make us safer. Refusing to release children to loved ones, depriving them of legal support, medical care, and education, none of that better protects any of us.
Americans deserve secure borders, a just system that targets violent criminals, and an immigration process that protects innocent children. Instead, Republicans task police with hunting down law-abiding immigrants with no criminal record. All this bill does is add children to their list of targets.
Kayla Hamilton's murder was absolutely horrific. As a mother myself, I can't imagine what her family endured. However, no mom should have her innocent child taken away, and this bill does just that. Kayla's murderer was arrested, convicted, and sentenced. He will spend his entire life in prison, and rightfully so, but not one child who will be ripped away from their mothers' arms by this bill was responsible for Kayla's death.
In America, we are all presumed innocent until proven guilty. That applies especially to children.
I hope my colleagues will join me in rejecting this vengeful family separation bill and stop punishing children for the actions of violent criminals.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman said that we were ripping children away from their mother's arms. Let me remind the gentlewoman from Florida that these are kids who are by themselves when they come to this country. However their parents decide that they should send them here. They are here without their parents. That is why they are a UAC. That is the legal term, an unaccompanied alien child. They do not have their parents present.
Again, the gentlewoman thinks that we are criminalizing kids. No, we are not. We are just saying that we should check the backgrounds of these children when they come in because not every child is this innocent, sweet child when they come in here. Most of them probably are, but not every one of them is. Sometimes, they have very troubled home lives and troubled communities, and for whatever reason, they are in our country.
Let's not repeat the mistakes of their country of origin and just let them out onto our streets. In the case of Walter Javier Martinez, he didn't stay with his sponsor but for a couple of weeks. Then, he was out on the streets by himself again, doing the exact same thing he did in his country of origin.
Let's get the facts a little bit straight when we talk about this.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4371, or what the GOP is calling today the Kayla Hamilton Act.
Let me begin by saying what should be clear to every Member of this body: The murder of Kayla Hamilton is a horrific and truly heartbreaking tragedy, and no family should ever have to endure such a loss. Nothing that we can do or say here will diminish the pain of those who loved her.
Mr. Speaker, our responsibility as lawmakers in this Chamber is not only to grieve and stand with our communities but also to legislate wisely and honestly, and not to allow the tragedy of one family to become the tool for potential violence against other children.
While the majority claims this legislation is about protecting children, this bill does not do that. In fact, it establishes a situation where children could be further incarcerated, abused, and traumatized by the hands of the United States Government, detained in immigration enforcement.
If passed, this bill could not only require placing unaccompanied children in detention centers with little to no due process, in the exact kind of private prisons where we know horrific abuses are happening under this administration, or perhaps even, yes, the kinds of kids in cages that happened in the first Trump administration, which we will never forget.
Not only will this bill not make it safer for children, but it could prohibit immigrant children from being reunified with their families here in the United States and would require government officials to conduct potentially invasive examinations of children as young as 12 years old.
One would think that we could all agree that that is not okay, especially in the institutional setting of jails, where we know already that physical abuses are happening.
This is a disgusting overreach of government authority. No government official should be allowed--more or less mandated under the law--to examine children's bodies in ways that could subject them to abuse, whether that is in this bill in government detention facilities, or whether the other bills that you all have been trying to pass this year that would possibly make it possible for children's bodies to be subjected to invasive examinations, including young girls and trans kids. None of this is okay.
I have to say that if my colleagues are so truly concerned about child trafficking and the abuse of young women, then I say to you, tomorrow is the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires that the President, who threatened many of you not to vote for that bill, is required to release the files that show why the U.S. Government never prosecuted one of the most notorious sex traffickers of all time. Why are we not focused on that?
If the House rules permitted, I would have offered a motion now to send this bill back to committee because this bill is dangerous for our children. My motion to recommit would also strike provisions that would allow Border Patrol and HHS to conduct physical examinations of children in detention centers.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to include in the Record the text of this amendment, and I hope my colleagues across the aisle will have the moral compass to protect our children.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from New Mexico?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
What happened to Kayla Hamilton was an unspeakable tragedy. Let me say that again: What happened to Kayla Hamilton was an unspeakable tragedy.
What we need to do in this body is make sure that our response to her murder is not to treat all unaccompanied children, the majority of whom are victims of crimes themselves, as criminals.
We can address the problems in the immigration system--and I agree with my colleagues across the aisle that there are real problems-- without being vindictive, without being cruel, and without subjecting children to worse treatment than adults. We can solve those problems because that is who we are talking about in this bill--kids, children.
There have been numerous assertions on the other side, but let us be clear about what this bill does. It does allow for the strip- searching--it mandates the strip-searching of children so that the Trump administration can trump up accusations of gang association. We should not be putting kids in prison because dictatorial rulers like Putin or Maduro claim that those people are criminals.
We shouldn't be turning the sponsorship of unaccompanied children into a pipeline toward deportation. That is just plain wrong.
The tides are shifting on immigration. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of how the administration is conducting immigration enforcement. Only 38 percent think that Donald Trump is doing a good job.
Americans across the political spectrum agree that more cruelty, more masked men kidnapping and disappearing people on the streets, more
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, today, we have an opportunity to take seriously the deficiencies in our UAC Program that have been exposed in the last 4 years of the Biden-Harris administration. Kids who are gang members in their country of origin are allowed to go to a sponsor.
Instead of doing background checks on the kids or checking for tattoos, we give them papier-mache projects and ask them to identify their gender if they feel comfortable talking about it. These are things that actually happened with Walter Javier Martinez.
Rather than take that money that the American people have given to the U.S. Treasury to spend for their safety, we are doing these ridiculous things instead of actually vetting a gang member from El Salvador.
Why don't we do it a little bit better in this country? Why can't we be a little bit smarter in this country?
Mr. Speaker, I will concede very easily that most kids are probably innocent. I have no problem with that, but for the ones that aren't, why are we putting them on our streets? Why are we not conducting adequate background checks on their pasts?
It took, in this case, a local cop in Maryland calling his country of origin to find out, after Kayla was murdered, that he had a criminal past. Why wouldn't we do that on the front end before we have a Kayla Hamilton?
On the flip side of this, I think this is just common sense, that if the law says that sponsors should undergo background checks before we release a kid, sure. Under the last administration, they were too busy pushing kids to sponsors at a record pace that they never even allowed those background checks of the sponsors to come back. They pushed kids into homes before we even knew what the sponsor was like, who they were, or what kind of background they had.
Mr. Speaker, that is reckless endangerment of a child. If we have, all of a sudden, the care and custody of an unaccompanied alien child, maybe we should make sure that the person we send them to isn't a criminal themselves, isn't engaged in sexual exploitation, and isn't engaged in human trafficking.
That is common sense, but what I have heard is that we are going to keep repeating the same tired lies, the same tired fabrications of what actually is going on in this country. Let's be a little bit smarter about the way that we do business.
We can protect kids with this bill. We can also protect our citizens to make sure that Kayla Hamiltons don't happen in every community in our country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
Mr. Speaker, Pursuant to House Resolution 951, I call up the bill (H.R. 3632) to amend the Federal Power Act to adjust the requirements for orders, rules, and regulations relating to furnishing adequate service, to require owners or operators of generating facilities to provide notice of planned retirements of certain electric generating units, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the bill is considered read.
The text of the bill is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3632.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Ohio?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act, sponsored by my colleague from Virginia's Ninth Congressional District (Mr. Griffith).
This legislation improves existing tools under the Federal Power Act to keep the lights on for households and ensures more effective long- term planning for our generation resources.
In the event that a power plant closure creates a shortage of available electricity, H.R. 3632 equips States and grid operators with an opportunity to seek relief from FERC until replacement capacity comes online.
Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of a reliability and affordability crisis because of the Biden-Harris administration and blue States who took a hatchet to our baseload capacity resources, while making it impossible to build the necessary energy infrastructure to replace it.
These policies were designed to achieve environmental goals that were unrelated to reliability, affordability, or stability of the bulk-power system. Nothing can be more destructive to our communities than a blackout.
When a State seeks to close a power plant without identifying a sufficient replacement, there is little recourse for effective households in neighboring States that need the power. The Power Plant Reliability Act solves this by providing a bridge solution to maintain generating resources until sufficient capacity can come online to fill the gap.
The numbers are staggering. Over the last decade, 115 gigawatts of power are expected to go offline, while 150 gigawatts of demand are expected to come online. The Department of Energy finds that the current pace of retirements and generation growth could increase the risk of outages over 100 times in just 4 short years.
Making matters worse, our adversaries are close on our heels to securing leadership positions in the next-generation economy. There is little time to waste.
Importantly, significant investment is flowing in growing our base of dispatchable resources. The Trump administration is working tirelessly to reverse unnecessary barriers to generation development and fuel innovation and baseload power like advanced nuclear. Yet, before these policies can take root, we must ensure that States and grid operators are equipped with the necessary tools to maintain reliability of the bulk-power system.
This legislation is another step to securing the grid and improving long-term planning needed to lead the next-generation economy. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3632.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3632. It is a bill that will raise energy prices for American families by forcing them to pay for outdated polluting plants that are poisoning their air and water.
A reliable and affordable energy supply is vital to our way of life. Unfortunately, this bill and Republican policies are making electricity less reliable and less affordable. Mr. Speaker, electricity bills are up about 13 percent on average across America this year. They are higher in many places.
In Florida, they just approved the largest rate increase in the history of the country. They approved $7 billion in rate hikes for Florida Power & Light. Tampa Electric and Duke Energy in my neck of the woods also hiked rates this year. For TECO customers, we are paying 82 percent more than 5 years ago, or $939 more than we were.
Electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as the rate of inflation. Why is this happening? It is because of Republican policies. It is the chaos and dysfunction. Let's go ahead and get into this.
Why are electricity prices so high?
What is driving the cost increases?
First, there are the arbitrary Trump tariffs. They are now at the highest levels than they have been since the 1930s. Estimates are that the average household is going to pay at least $1,000 more because of tariffs. When we talk about energy, we are talking, as well, about how we modernize the grid, power poles, wires, and everything that goes into an electrical system. The utilities are passing that on to hardworking families.
Then we have the big, ugly bill that Republicans forced through here last summer. Predictions were when we take a hatchet to cleaner, cheaper energy poised to come onto the grid, when we rip away tax credits and rebates for consumers to keep their electricity bills low, prices are going to go up. That is what we are seeing now, too.
The big, ugly bill is estimated to raise electricity prices by a staggering 61 percent over the next decade, particularly as a result of Republicans declaring war on clean, cheap energy and crippling the American clean energy industry.
I don't know, Mr. Speaker. Did you see the jobs report that came out this morning? It doesn't look good. In today's jobs report, the number of manufacturing jobs continues to slide. November was the seventh straight
My colleagues have heard all about them. An offshore wind project might be approved, permitted, and ready to come online. He says: No, we are not going to do that.
Mr. Speaker, that has an impact on the bottom line for our families. We might have another project coming online that is ready to go. It is cleaner energy. Everyone knows that solar power with storage and wind power with storage is the cheapest energy online. The Trump administration and Republican policies said no.
When our constituents open up that electric bill, I want them to understand that all of this has a cost and that they deserve so much better than the chaos and dysfunction, the distraction of tearing down the East Wing to build a ballroom, and the parties with dancing girls at Mar-a-Lago. Why don't my colleagues focus on people's cost of living for a change?
We would think that folks in Congress would come here to help solve problems.
Is there going to be an answer for higher healthcare costs? In Florida, 4.7 million of my neighbors rely on the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Do Republicans have any answer for the 20 million families here during the holiday season who can't buy holiday gifts they want to put under the tree for their families? No, they will have to pinch every penny to pay for their healthcare. Many will go without.
Mr. Speaker, think about the cancer patients now who are looking at the new year and how they are going to afford their treatment.
It is electricity costs. It is groceries. It is healthcare costs. Then my Republican colleagues will waste our time with a bill that is another in the line of special treatment for polluters at the expense of hardworking American families today.
This bill would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission broad authority to force utilities to keep expensive and polluting fossil fuel power plants operating for extended periods, up to 5 years. What that does is it locks customers into paying billions of dollars more for power plants that were slated for retirement, despite the volatile fuel costs and the environmental harm.
They want to continue to block cleaner and cheaper energy, which is the cheapest energy coming onto the grid right now. I think they are living 20 to 30 years ago. Electricity generated by coal is on the decline. While it was about 50 percent of the electricity generation in America in the year 2000, here we are, 25 years later, and it is only 20 percent of electricity generation.
The main reason for that is simple. Coal is more expensive than a lot of the other options we have today. In almost every case today, it is actually cheaper to build new renewables than to keep existing coal plants running. Coal is only getting more expensive. Three-quarters of coal plants saw costs rising faster than inflation just over the past few years.
This bill is anticonsumer. Frankly, it is anti-American. People deserve better. If we want to lower electricity bills, I would ask my colleagues to march down to the White House because the President is the only one arbitrarily taking energy generation offline and hiking electricity costs.
During the last administration, the number of utility-scale electric power plants actually increased by over 2,000. We produced more energy than ever before. We have a commitment to serve the people that send us here and to help them lower their bills through rebates, through energy efficiency, through help for their pocketbooks, not the bottom line of polluters who have all too much power here on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Speaker, the Department of Energy already has the authority under the Federal Power Act to prevent power plants from retiring if doing so would cause reliability problems. Republicans want to go further. This bill requires States to file reliability complaints 5 years before a generator retires. It is almost impossible to predict the impact of a plant retirement that far ahead.
This bill gives polluting plants a pass to ignore Federal, State, and local environmental laws. As we have already seen multiple times just this year, these plants aren't even reliable.
Mr. Speaker, we will have a whole lot more to say on this, but I really wish we would not waste people's time by coming here and making their lives more expensive at a time when they are clamoring for help on their groceries, on their healthcare, and on their electricity bills. Republicans brought a bill that actually hikes electricity and utility costs. They deserve so much better.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, in 2024, the FERC Commissioner, Mark Christie, testified before us in the Energy and Commerce Committee. He was referring to the severe impact that the Biden administration EPA's power plant rule, commonly known as the Clean Power Plan 2.0, was having.
He stated this: ``If the EPA's new power plant rule survives court challenge, it will force the retirements of nearly all remaining coal generation plants and will prevent the construction of vitally needed new combined-cycle baseload . . . generation.''
This loss of this dispatchable generation resources will be, in his words, ``catastrophic''--``catastrophic.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), from the First District.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025.
H.R. 3632 will help keep baseload power plants running for up to 5 years while allowing FERC the time to address State concerns about the impacts of shutting down certain power plants. This bill will allow State grid operators to contest the closure of power plants if the closure will create a reliability problem in their State.
As we work to lower electricity costs across the Nation, we do not need to be closing power plants with little to no notice. Americans deserve affordable electricity prices, and this legislation will do just that.
Democrats, under President Biden, spent 4 years trying to dismantle affordable baseload generation in favor of green new scam policies that have done nothing but raise prices for Americans.
This bill will allow us to plan for the future when thinking about our energy sources. It is an essential tool for maintaining a reliable, efficient grid that works for all Americans.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to cosponsor Congressman Griffith's Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, and I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the so-called Power Plant Reliability Act. At a time of rapidly rising energy costs, this is yet another bill that Republicans are trying to stick our constituents with.
This legislation would force old, expensive power plants to stay online for up to 5 years after their scheduled retirement date. There are already existing tools in the Federal Power Act to ensure that an electricity generator shutting down will not lead to a reliability issue.
Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to have these facilities stay online for a short time period while another project can be completed. Yet even with these more limited existing authorities, we have witnessed troubling examples of how these types of must-run orders can be abused.
For example, the Trump administration has issued numerous 90-day orders that would force the continued operation of a coal-fired power plant in Michigan. There was a reason it was shutting down. It was simply too expensive to continue to run, especially compared to alternatives.
The power plant's owner and the regional grid operator, MISO, do not feel
We wonder why everyone has seen their utility bills skyrocket under President Trump. It is thoughtless decisions like this one that prioritize subsidizing the coal industry instead of actually addressing legitimate reliability and affordability issues facing our electricity system.
Mr. Speaker, they paid $80 million in a matter of a few months. Imagine if that power plant was forced to run not for 90-day increments but for 5 years, as proposed by this bill.
At the end of the day, we, as Members of Congress, have an important decision to make: Are we going to protect our constituents from rising energy bills, or are we going to protect coal companies that desperately need someone to keep buying and burning their product, even when it is no longer needed? Our constituents simply cannot afford another giveaway to coal companies at the expense of their wallets.
Mr. Speaker, I urge Members who care about energy reliability and, yes, affordability, the keyword these days, to come together on solutions that will actually improve the lives of our constituents, not just declaring fake emergencies as a pretense to extract more money from people who simply cannot afford it.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Latta for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, the Power Plant Reliability Act is a commonsense step to ensure that the power plant retirements do not undermine the reliability of our electric grid.
This legislation requires power plant owners to provide 5 years' advance notice before retiring a facility, giving grid operators, regulators, and States the time that they need to plan for replacements and prevent power shortfalls.
Under current law, FERC has limited authority to address reliability problems caused by plant retirements, including the ability, under certain circumstances, to order a plant to remain online.
This bill enhances the authority by allowing grid operators and States to formally contest a retirement when it would threaten the reliability.
In order to keep the lights on, strengthen our electric system, and help to lower Americans' electricity costs, we have to ensure that we have enough baseload power online. This legislation does just that.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I had a raised smile when I saw that poster, ``House Republicans are Strengthening the Electric Grid,'' because it is such a canard. It was just a few months ago where the Trump administration canceled hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize America's electric grid in red States and blue States. It was a complicated system of wires and transmission.
Mr. Speaker, you would think that, in a country such as ours, where we know electricity demand is going up, that one thing we could agree on investing in is modernizing our electric grid, but no. The Trump administration, just like they have taken a hatchet to cleaner, cheaper energy, has taken a hatchet to those hardworking people and the folks who keep the lights on for us.
Grid modernization is important, so the last thing Republicans and this administration are doing is strengthening the grid.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Scholten).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3632 and in favor of addressing the affordability crisis that is crippling the American Dream.
Passing this bill would keep costly, outdated power plants running and stick hardworking American families with the bill.
There is a lot of bluster here in Washington, so let's break this down. What is happening with this bill?
H.R. 3632 gives the Federal Government the power to force power plants to stay open even when local utilities and State regulators themselves have decided that it makes more sense, financially and in terms of efficiency and power, to close them.
It also requires utilities to give years of notice before closing a power plant, giving bureaucrats in Washington and special interests even more chances to step in and overrule local decisions.
When utilities decide to close a power plant, they don't do so on a whim. These decisions come after years of study to make sure that power stays reliable and the bills can stay as low as possible.
H.R. 3632 removes that decisionmaking power, taking it away from the experts and putting it back to bureaucrats in Washington. Instead of trusting local experts, this bill puts decisions in the hands of Washington officials who are far away from their communities.
Utilities are forced to keep running their plants that cost more to operate, and those extra costs are passed on to families and small businesses. Communities should not be told that Washington knows better, especially when the result is more paperwork and higher bills for American families.
We are not talking about hypotheticals here, Mr. Speaker. We have seen this happen firsthand back home in west Michigan. We know what happens when the Federal Government steps in. The J.H. Campbell coal power plant back home in west Michigan was set to close after years of careful planning. I visited the plant. There were just days of coal supply left. They had already had plans for alternative, more efficient power outsourcing to support the grid with a fraction of the size and an even smaller fraction of the pollution and impact on our environment. Everyone was happy until the Trump administration stepped in and said, no, you are going to reopen, and sent our community scrambling.
The plan to close this plant and defuse the power to other cleaner sources would have saved Michigan families $600 million on their power bills. Instead, those savings disappeared, and hardworking Michiganders are paying more every single month.
The President may call the affordability crisis a hoax, but I invite him to come to west Michigan and talk to people who are paying more every single month in their utility bills because of this plan.
H.R. 3632 would make this kind of outcome more common. It allows Federal officials to keep power plants running for years, even when they cost more and even when local leaders say it is not the right choice.
This is not a balanced energy plan. It is a top-down order that raises costs and ignores systems that already work to keep power reliable and affordable.
At a time when families are struggling to pay for groceries, healthcare, and housing, they cannot afford higher energy bills caused by decisions like this from the administration.
For that reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. If the House rules allowed, I would have offered a motion with an amendment that does one simple thing. It would stop this bill from taking effect if it raises costs for everyday Americans.
Think about that. Wouldn't my Republican colleagues across the aisle agree that we shouldn't be introducing these bills until we know if they raise costs? What are we so afraid of?
Allow this amendment because if a bill raises electricity costs, it is the wrong bill. I founded the Lowering Costs Caucus here in Congress to fight against policies like this.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record the text of this amendment immediately prior to the vote on the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Michigan?
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act, introduced by my colleague from the Ninth District of Virginia.
This legislation enhances existing authorities under Federal law to provide targeted and temporary relief when premature plant closures create a shortage of electricity until sufficient replacements can come online.
Throughout the year, the Committee on Energy and Commerce has held several hearings with grid operators, utilities, co-ops, and experts across the energy sector. Without fail, these witnesses have stated that our Nation is shutting down too much generation and not replacing it with adequate alternatives.
Don't take my word for it. Last month, NERC, the very entity that Congress charged with protecting reliability, called the reliability crisis a ``five-alarm fire.''
South Carolina has seen this, where Federal regulations under Obama and Biden made the operation of baseload power plants so expensive that they had no choice but to shut down.
House Republicans are listening to the experts and advancing the Power Plant Reliability Act to expand the toolbox for States and grid operators to secure the grid and improve long-term planning for our generation resources.
I will say, as a practical matter, we can see the results of this play out on the world stage. When we look to our ally, Taiwan, which is shutting down power plants and trying to replace them with wind and solar, what is the practical effect of that happening? Brownouts throughout the island. If we are shutting down power but not replacing it, what is going to happen to our country? I think the lesson that we can learn is, let's not repeat what is happening in other parts of the world. Let's do our own thing and make sure that we have adequate generation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I simply must call out some of the hypocrisy coming from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
We have watched over the past few months as electricity costs for hardworking Americans have gone up. People are asking why this is happening. We talked about the impact of the arbitrary tariffs that are raising the cost of living on everyone. The Republican policies in the big, ugly bill have taken a hatchet to cleaner, cheaper energy coming onto the grid.
When that is married up with the very significant project cancellations of the Department of Energy and across the administration, it comes to lost or delayed private investments of $53 billion; 324 projects canceled or delayed, or layoffs; over 24,000 megawatts lost that could have been coming onto the grid to keep prices lower. That adds up to over 13 million homes that could have had cleaner, cheaper energy powering them.
There is so much hypocrisy here in Washington right now. For decades, Republicans claimed to be the party of free markets and of business and competition. This bill is anti-competition. I remember a day when Republicans actually championed competition in the electricity sector. Those days are over, and that means that our neighbors back home are going to pay higher prices.
Today's bill has nothing to do with free markets. Instead, it is government intervention into the electricity sector that would make a Soviet planner blush. Instead of letting power plants compete to see who can deliver reliable power at lower costs, Republicans would instead establish a 5-year plan to mandate which power plants stay online and forcing Americans to pay the bill. This bill has more in common with Karl Marx and Chairman Mao than it does with the pre-Donald Trump Republican Party.
Mr. Speaker, we can't take our eye off the ball here. The reality is that the President promised to cut Americans' electricity bills. He promised that he would cut them in half by the time he was 1 year into his term.
Here we are, at the end of the year, and energy bills are up, way up, over 13 percent in many places. I think that is a failing grade. I think it speaks to the weakness of these arguments, as they try to paper over the struggles of American families and like to pretend that they are doing something, while we watch healthcare costs go way up and the costs of groceries weigh people down.
They want free markets when it means well for their fossil fuel allies, but they want government intervention and socialized costs the moment consumers might actually benefit from lower prices.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in strong support of the Power Plant Reliability Act.
Last week, my State Planning for Reliability and Affordability Act passed the House with bipartisan support, and today's bill is yet another critical component in the fight to restore sanity when it comes to energy policy in States like Colorado.
In recent years, ruling Democrats have been pushing to shut down all coal-fired power plants in Colorado by 2030, including two by the end of this year, to meet arbitrary climate goals and without regard for reliability or affordability. This has spiked costs in Colorado 24 percent under Biden and our own Democrat Governor.
I will remind our friends that higher costs increase poverty, which also increases negative health outcomes.
This is especially troubling when we consider that these two closures in Colorado represent more than 10 percent of the baseload, dispatchable power being retired nationwide, even though Colorado only accounts for 1.3 percent of total U.S. energy production.
Now, the Democrat-appointed director of the Colorado Energy Office, Will Toor, is backtracking his own coal plant closure plans because he knows closing them is going to spike rates and result in more blackouts.
This is a threat my district is aware of now more than ever because just last night, thousands of my constituents received a notice from their utility that beginning today they may have weather-related blackouts lasting anywhere from a couple hours to several days.
This bill today helps us combat misguided energy policies by allowing States and grid operators to contest the closure of power plants in neighboring States if there is an impact to reliability. This is a commonsense enhancement that is critical to ensuring Americans in States with reasonable energy policies don't suffer because of States like Colorado.
House Republicans are committed to lowering energy costs for working families by championing policies that ensure energy dominance. I am proud to support this bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes.''
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my good friend Morgan Griffith's bill, H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act.
If you ask Americans to define ``common sense,'' I am quite certain that they would all agree that it is simply common sense to stop retiring reliable resources to generate power before you have adequate resources to replace them. The number one thing we need in this country is reliable power. More than anything else, people must have it for their safety and for our economy.
Yet, our grid is facing a serious reliability crisis. How do we know that?
Because the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, NERC, the one organization responsible for looking at the grid and ensuring its reliability, is saying we have a five-alarm fire, for good reason.
We are seeing record demand for electricity at the same time that misguided policies are forcing reliable baseload power off the grid. That is a
That transparency is critical for grid operators. You cannot plan transmission, build replacement generation, or ensure grid reliability without adequate time.
We have gone too fast. The truth is, reliable power is affordable power. This map shows it. It just came out. The most affordable State on there is North Dakota, my home State. We still invest in reliable, clean coal.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act, sponsored by my colleague Mr. Griffith from Virginia's Ninth Congressional District.
H.R. 3632 enhances existing authority under the Federal Power Act to protect the bulk-power system from premature retirements of baseload power and ensures more effective long-term planning for our generating resources.
It is no secret that we find ourselves in a reliability and affordability crisis driven by irresponsible decisions to shutter reliable and affordable baseload power plants.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim their positions are based on science, but the problem is their science is political science that will lead to higher energy costs and less reliability.
Even the head of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, who is charged with protecting the reliability of our Nation's bulk- power system, recently called the reliability crisis a five-alarm fire.
This is the path that was laid out by the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats, pushing their misguided and dangerous political science.
Making a bad situation worse, we need significant energy resources to compete in the artificial intelligence arms race. With adversarial nations like China, whoever wins the AI arms race will not be a superpower. They will be the superpower.
Manufacturing, industrial processing, and AI data centers all require affordable and abundant electricity that only comes from baseload and dispatchable resources. If these energy-intensive industries could run on wind and solar, they would already be doing so.
The Power Plant Reliability Act is another tool in the reliability toolbox for States and grid operators to keep the lights on for households and to fuel the next-generation economy.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.
Mr. Speaker, this is a really tough time for the folks we represent back home. It is made worse by Trump's unfolding energy crisis. It is an affordability crisis.
Looking ahead, looking in the years ahead, I think my colleagues had a point: We are going to need more energy. So it makes no sense at all for Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration to take a hatchet to cleaner, cheaper energy that is poised to come on the grid, cancel projects, and throw people out of jobs.
I pointed out earlier that if you looked at the jobs report that came out this morning, manufacturing jobs were on their seventh month of decline. Part of that is because the Trump administration went into this year saying that we don't believe in solar power and wind power and storage and everything that makes your power more efficient. At the same time, they passed the big, ugly bill that rips away all sorts of cost-savers, like for families back home that are going to replace their heating and cooling system, a little bit of help in their pocketbook to do it in an affordable way.
Meanwhile, the President, what did he promise? He said: I am going to make life more affordable. But everything that they have done, whether it is arbitrary tariffs, canceling projects, killing jobs, now trying to pass bills that heap costs on our families back home, everything they have done has raised the cost of living.
I was flabbergasted when the President said: This whole affordability thing, it is a hoax. You tell that to the hardworking people back home going into the grocery store or the people now looking at their health insurance bill that this Congress refuses to solve. Then you bring a bill to the floor to add insult to injury, to make life even more expensive by making their utility bills more expensive? They are already up 13 percent on average across the country.
Ever since Republicans took the majority here, we have been waiting for one bill to lower the cost of living. We have nothing. Just this year, utilities have asked for $34 billion worth of rate increases. American families have each spent $1,200 more this year to fund Trump's tariffs. Electricity prices are up by 13 percent. Natural gas prices are up by 8 percent, and the big, ugly bill will increase electricity prices by 61 percent. American families simply cannot afford the weight of all of this any longer, and they deserve so much better.
What do the Republicans want to do today? They want to pass another bill that will increase prices by up to $6 billion each year. This is not a hoax. This is not a hoax. Instead, they offer a Christmas gift to the Nation's largest polluters.
But I guess Republicans in Congress just believe what the President said: Affordability is a hoax; nothing to see here.
Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear to all Americans. I don't care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, or Independent, how you are registered, we are going to stand up for you. We are going to fight back at every turn. We are going to fight for your pocketbook. We are not going to let them get away with this. We are actually going to do something about it because we know you deserve better. This is not a hoax.
Mr. Speaker, this chart tells it all. We talked about it the other day.
Mr. Speaker, look at the top 12 States that are having problems. California is at the top. Then look at the New England States: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Their Governors earlier this year stated that their citizens are paying 40 percent more for fuel this winter. Why is that?
Well, if they don't allow pipelines, they don't allow energy to get into their area, and they rely on somebody else to do it for them, then it is going to happen.
If the people want to know who is causing the prices to go up, then they had better go home and talk to their State's legislators and their Governors and find out why, because these numbers don't lie. They do not lie.
We are going to take off 115 gigawatts of generation alone in this country when we are supposed to be putting on 155 gigawatts of power.
Earlier this year, the RTOs and the ISOs, those are the folks who manage the wholesale electricity markets and transmission in this country, all testified for us in committee and said this: We need more power not less, more power not less.
They also said this: And we can't take off any generation. If you want to see prices go up, just keep taking that generation offline because that is what is going to happen.
I thank the gentleman from Virginia's Ninth Congressional District for sponsoring this important legislation.
This bill provides a critical tool for States and grid operators to secure the grid until new generation comes online and ensures long-term effective planning by improving our understanding of our available generation resources.
There is nothing more expensive than a blackout, and this bill will ensure processes are in place to keep the lights--the lights--on for all Americans and to make their utility bills more affordable.
H.R. 3632 has broad support from America's Power, the National Hydropower Association, Americans for Prosperity, and the National Mining Association.
Democrats like to talk about affordability, but electricity prices went up over 25 percent--25 percent--during the Biden administration. House Republicans are taking action with legislation like H.R. 3632, to help lower Americans' utility bills.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Power Reliability Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 951, the previous question is ordered on the bill.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to recommit on the bill (H.R. 4371) to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children, offered by the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury), on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk will redesignate the motion.
The Clerk redesignated the motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 208, nays 218, not voting 7, as follows:
Mr. WEBSTER of Florida, Mrs. FISCHBACH, Mr. MOORE of Alabama, Ms. MALOY, Messrs. FLOOD, SHREVE, BACON, CARTER of Texas,
Mr. BISHOP, Mses. SANCHEZ, SIMON, MATSUI, Mr. DOGGETT, and Ms. KAPTUR changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 225, nays 201, not voting 7, as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. There are 2 minutes remaining.
Ms. WATERS changed her vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to recommit on the bill (H.R. 3632) to amend the Federal Power Act to adjust the requirements for orders, rules, and regulations relating to furnishing adequate service, to require owners or operators of generating facilities to provide notice of planned retirements of certain electric generating units, and for other purposes, offered by the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Scholten), on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk will redesignate the motion.
The Clerk redesignated the motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 207, nays 218, not voting 8, as follows:
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, due to illness, I was unable to vote today. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 339, the Motion to Recommit on H.R. 4371; NAY on Roll Call No. 340, H.R. 4371; YEA on Roll Call No. 341, the Motion to Recommit on H.R. 3632; and NAY on Roll Call No. 342, H.R. 3632.
Mr. Speaker, I was absent from the chamber today. Had I recorded my vote, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 340, H.R. 4371, and NAY on Roll Call No. 342, H.R. 3632.
Madam Speaker, today, the Iowa delegation, myself, along with Representative Hinson, Representative Miller-Meeks, and Representative Feenstra, and other members of the floor, including those who have served in uniform and those who support those in uniform, rise today to honor two brave Iowans, Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard, of Marshalltown, Iowa, who this week gave their lives in service of our country.
On December 13, while serving with the Iowa National Guard in Syria, Edgar and Nate were killed by an ISIS terrorist attack. Three other guardsmen were wounded, and a U.S. interpreter was also killed.
This was the first combat loss of American troops in Syria in over 5 years, and every American grieves alongside the families of the fallen.
Edgar was just 25 years old. He was the first in his family to answer the call to service. He was full of energy, known for putting service before self, and just months from coming home.
Nate was 29. He was a man of faith, a loving husband, and a guardsman with over a decade of service. He led by example--first in, last out, never leave a brother behind.
They were young men. They could have chosen easier paths, but instead they chose service to our Nation. They stood their post when it mattered most. They carried the weight of our Nation's safety on their shoulders, and they did so with courage, humility, and honor.
In return, we, the U.S. House of Representatives, give them our gratitude, not just in words, but in remembrance of the solemn promise that justice will be served.
Out of grief, we renew our resolve. Out of loss, we strengthen our unity. Out of sacrifice, we carry forward hope, hope grounded in the values that Edgar and Nate lived every day: service before self, faith in something greater, and a love of country.
Madam Speaker, I respectfully ask the House of Representatives to now observe a moment of silence in honor of Sergeant Edgar Brian Torres- Tovar and Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard.
Making in Order at Any Time Consideration of H. CON. RES. 61, Directing the President, Pursuant to Section 5(C) of the War Powers Resolution, to Remove United States Armed Forces From Hostilities...
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order at any time to consider H. Con. Res. 61 and H. Con. Res. 64 in the House if called up by the chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, or his designee; that each such concurrent resolution be considered as read; and that the previous question be considered as ordered on each such concurrent resolution to adoption without intervening motion, except for: 1, with respect to H. Con. Res. 61, 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or their respective designees; and 2, with respect to H. Con. Res. 64, 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by Representative Mast of Florida, Representative Meeks of New York, and Representative McGovern of Massachusetts, or their respective designees.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Florida?
Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a special tradition that took place this past Saturday, December 13: National Wreaths Across America Day.
Every year in December, thousands of volunteers set out in a coordinated wreath-laying ceremony across America and the world. This year's theme was inspired by the last words of Captain Joshua Byers: ``Keep moving forward.''
Captain Joshua Byers was company commander of Fox Troop in Iraq in 2003 when an IED struck his Humvee. As smoke filled the air, Josh gave his driver one final command: Keep moving forward.
Though Josh didn't make it home, this command saved lives and became the battle cry for his unit and family.
It is only fitting that the theme for 2025 should reflect the same spirit: a call to action for volunteers and supporters in the communities that they serve.
Madam Speaker, I thank the many organizers, volunteers, and participants who make Wreaths Across America possible. Their dedication ensures that hundreds of thousands of veterans are remembered with dignity and respect.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Jeff Kirwan, a trusted voice and a guide for farmers, both as the president of the Mercer County Farm Bureau and a member of the Illinois Farm Bureau, for many years.
When I was a new Member of Congress, Jeff brought me to his farm and offered his help to guide me on my way. We talked about the state of agriculture and what a fighter for our farm families should look like right here.
Guided by his education in agronomy and many years at GROWMARK, Jeff became one of the first in our region to use precision agriculture in the early 1990s.
This month, after a decade at the Illinois Farm Bureau table, Jeff is retiring.
I thank Jeff for his kindness, for his wisdom, and for inviting me on his tractor. Jeff should enjoy his retirement. I look forward to seeing what life has ahead for him and his family.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Steve Kahl on his retirement from the North Dakota Public Service Commission after 46 years. I had the honor of working with Steve for 12 of those years.
When he began his career, staff typed on automatic typewriters, carbon copies were filed by hand, and all correspondence traveled by mail.
Steve witnessed the first computer arriving at the North Dakota Capitol. It took up nearly an entire wall.
As Steve would tell you himself, he had hair, a mustache, and a full beard when he started.
Over the decades, Steve helped guide the commission through enormous change, modernizing regulation for auctioneers, grain licensing, trucking, and telecom. He helped develop one of the first GIS programs in the country and modernized the commission's permitting processes.
I am a better public servant because of Steve's influence. North Dakota is stronger because of his steady leadership and commitment to getting things right.
I congratulate Steve and thank him for the legacy that he has left behind. Steve should enjoy his retirement. He has earned it.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the Trump administration's decision to eliminate Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from its list of free entrance days for our national parks.
This is a continuation of this administration's efforts to undermine and erase Black history. Already this year, the administration has ordered several National Park Service sites to remove materials related to slavery.
We must make our national parks more accessible, and there is no better way to do that than increasing free admission days in celebration of national holidays that include and recognize the legacy of Dr. King and to commemorate the story of emancipation.
If eliminating these days was not enough, the President took the unprecedented step to add his own birthday to the list of free admission days to our national parks.
His disrespect for some of the most important stories in American history has no bounds and speaks volumes to the content of his character.
Our country's national parks are commonly referred to as America's best idea, and this is a very bad idea.
Madam Speaker, just a year ago, I was sworn in in this Chamber to represent the good people of Indiana's Sixth District.
Since then, I have traveled the district from Columbus to Rushville, Connersville to Winchester, listening to Hoosiers. They are generous with their time, candid with their opinions, and not shy about telling you when you are wrong.
My office has handled some 50,000 constituent inquiries. We have helped over 450 Hoosiers with the IRS, the VA, and the Postal Service. We have recovered about $5 million for hardworking families. That was their money. We were just the middlemen.
This year, six of my bills passed the House, including the Build the Wall Act, which was signed into law by President Trump. It repurposes unspent COVID funds to complete construction of our southern border wall, and it didn't cost taxpayers an additional dime.
I have focused on legislation that cuts red tape, unleashes American energy, lowers costs, and brings costs down for Hoosiers. Washington makes this harder than it should be. I will keep working at it.
Next year, I will keep traveling our district, listening first, and doing my level best to bring some Hoosier common sense here to Washington.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the service of a very special person, our defense fellow, U.S. Marine captain and JAG Viviana Lowe, whose tenure with our office is sadly coming to a close.
Viviana is here with us today. Viviana has been an enormously instrumental member of our office this last year, leading us to more than 35 policy wins in the NDAA that will have lasting impact on the services for decades to come.
Through her leadership of the Servicewomen and Women Veterans Caucus and especially with the WITs, Viviana has ensured that our military is a place where our servicewomen all feel valued and supported.
Her dedication to the academy nomination process and inspiring the next generation of servicemembers has been a gift not only to our office but to our entire community and will pay back in dividends that we don't yet appreciate.
As she leaves our office and heads back to the Pentagon to join the Marine's Judge Advocate Division, we know that our Nation is fortunate to have a fierce warrior and public servant like Viviana at the helm.
We will miss Viviana and her amazing energy and spirit.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, which protects children from unscientific sex-rejecting procedures.
Dangerous and irreversible sex-change interventions for children should have no place in our medical system. These life-altering procedures, performed on minors who are still developing, carry serious risks, including infertility, sexual dysfunction, psychiatric complications, and long-term regret.
Subjecting healthy, developing children, many of whom may be suffering from mental health issues, to damaging and harmful procedures without a clear, proven medical purpose is simply wrong.
Additionally, comprehensive studies reveal profound uncertainty about the alleged benefits of these interventions. In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report finding that the so-called gender-affirming model of care for gender-distressed children lacks sufficient scientific and ethical justification.
Prohibiting Federal Medicaid funding of sex-rejecting procedures for minors is essential to protect our Nation's children, not exposing them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions.
We must be guided by sound science, medical ethics, and our responsibility to do no harm, not the radical left's agenda.
Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.
Madam Speaker, over the weekend, the world watched in horror as Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah were murdered on the shores of Sydney, Australia.
It is dizzying, and it is unfathomable. Devastatingly, it has become more common in our world today. It doesn't matter whether it is in Australia, the United States, or Israel, the killing of Jewish people for practicing their faith is unconscionable, and it must stop.
Today we mourn the 15 lives lost at Bondi Beach. We grieve with their families and their loved ones, and we share the pain felt by the entire Jewish community around the world.
Hanukkah is a celebration of light, a proof point that even in dark times, Jewish communities can find the joy. However, these are not easy days. With freedom and lives on the line, we need change, and we need the violence to stop. As co-chair of the anti-Semitism task force, I will always speak out to use my voice to uproot anti-Semitism wherever it festers.
To the Jewish community in Michigan and beyond: I see you, I hear you,
Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Raj Clement on the opening of his new state-of-the-art Ford dealership in Wentzville, Missouri.
Raj began selling cars online to help pay for college and went on, through vision and hard work, to build his business into a thriving enterprise with seven locations that now contribute significantly to our region's economy.
This new, 71,000-square-foot Ford 2.0 facility will bring 150 jobs to Wentzville, supporting families, strengthening local businesses, and boosting economic growth. Projects like these are exactly what we hope to see: local entrepreneurs investing in Missouri, expanding opportunity, and helping our region thrive.
Raj's dedication and hard work reflect the very best of the American spirit.
I extend my sincere congratulations to Raj Clement and the entire Clement Auto Group for their commitment to our community and for the positive impact this investment will have for the people of Missouri's Third Congressional District.
Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor Peter George as Ohio's 13th Congressional District's Champion of the Week.
For 25 years, Peter George, or as many know him as Gilby, has played the part of the Akron Public Schools' districtwide mascot. In a canine costume that was heavy and hot, Peter showed up lighthearted and energetic to meet the hugs, high-fives, and smiles of Akron children. As Gilby, Peter has danced at pep rallies, walked in parades, posed for photos, and comforted ill or disabled youth.
What mattered most wasn't the costume. It was the care. Peter understood that for some kids, Gilby wasn't just a mascot, but rather a highlight of someone's day or the lightening of someone's load. From school hallways to hospital rooms, Peter met children where they were and made them feel seen.
In fact, although he says he is retiring, he will never turn down an opportunity to put a smile on a child's face who happens to be in the hospital.
Today I honor someone most of us have known not by his face, but by the joy he brought into our lives.
Peter's work reminds us that joy is a form of service. I thank him for his 25 years of love, laughter, kindness, and APS school pride.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Minneapolis Public Schools superintendent, Dr. Lisa Sayles-Adams, on her achievement of being named the 2026 Minnesota Superintendent of the Year.
Bringing over 30 years of experience as a teacher, principal, and district leader, Dr. Sayles-Adams is the second Minneapolis school superintendent to win the State honor.
Since stepping into this role, Dr. Sayles-Adams has been committed to working alongside families, faculty, and students to improve our public schools, visiting over 50 schools, and hosting seven community listening sessions.
Under her leadership, Minneapolis Public Schools have been marked by positive change, with community trust and academic performance improving districtwide.
I am incredibly grateful for her dedication to ensuring Minneapolis' children receive the support they need to succeed.
Madam Speaker, I rise today because I believe healthcare is a basic human dignity and right.
Sadly, due to a refusal to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, millions across this country are at risk of losing their healthcare on January 1, just 2 weeks away.
Now, my colleagues across the aisle are undermining key achievements of the ACA in favor of the ill-conceived policy choices like CHOICE Arrangements and association health plans. Under these proposals, insurers can cut corners and neglect essential services for mental health, substance abuse, and chronic disease management.
Let me be clear: The failure to extend ACA tax credits or present a viable alternative is simply unacceptable.
Without these tax credits, 21,000 families in Maryland's Sixth District will see skyrocketing premiums and nearly 9,000 of my neighbors stand to lose coverage entirely. Moreover, many of our rural hospitals and health providers are at risk of closing or stopping essential services. Finally, over a quarter of our farmers rely on ACA tax extensions and will be priced out of healthcare.
In sum, together, in community, we must take care of one another. We must protect affordable care and put people's health over partisanship.
Madam Speaker, I rise today and every day for the working families of northwestern Ohio. This includes rural Americans across this country who are being left behind by the bills not reaching this floor this week.
Right now, Congress is debating healthcare as if it were an abstract policy exercise, but back home, it is very real. It is the factory worker in Defiance choosing between insulin and groceries. It is the farmer in Fulton County driving an hour to see a doctor and then opening a bill he simply cannot pay.
These proposals do nothing to protect them. Let's be clear. A $1,000 health savings account is not insurance. It is a coupon, one that disappears the moment you walk into an emergency room.
That money helps people who already have savings. It does not help families living paycheck to paycheck. One hospital visit costs more than a month's rent.
Instead of stabilizing premiums, extending ACA subsidies, and protecting coverage, these phony bills gamble with people's lives.
Madam Speaker, healthcare should not depend on your ZIP Code, your job title, or the balance in your bank account. Working Ohioans deserve real coverage, not false, empty promises.
Madam Speaker, I rise today on a subject that is very timely and important, but before I go into that, I thank my colleagues, the Congresswomen from Maryland and Ohio, for their speaking truth about healthcare and what the negligence of this body is in not bringing up a bill for us to have to extend the subsidies. It is taking a toll on our families. It is really immoral, in my view.
However, I rise today in response to the unjust guilty verdict handed down by China against Jimmy Lai. Jimmy Lai is a publisher and a prisoner of conscience convicted not for committing a crime but for exercising the fundamental freedoms of speech and press.
His work at Apple Daily gave voice to the people of Hong Kong and held power to account. For that, he has been
This guilty verdict sends a chilling message that truth is on trial in Hong Kong. It shreds the promises of autonomy and rule of law and exposes the reality of Beijing's crackdown on democracy.
His son, Sebastien, and his daughter, Claire, have lobbied for his freedom.
The United States must speak with moral clarity. We must condemn this verdict. We must demand his immediate release.
Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor the life of Hawaii County Fire Chief Kazuo Todd.
I was fortunate to spend time with Kazuo--visits to the firehouse and dispatch center, meetings and conferences, catching him around D.C. and Hawaii Island. He even suited me up in full fire gear to break down a door so I could experience the training his firefighters endure.
In all the time I got to spend with him, one truth came through very clearly: Kazuo cared, deeply and genuinely, about people. He was a devoted son, a loving husband, and a proud father who cared for the Hawaii Island people the same way he cared for his own ``family'' ``ohana,'' with a calm sense in crisis, humility in leadership, and an unshakable sense of responsibility and aloha for others.
To the Todd ``family'' ``ohana,'' while our time with Kazuo was far too short, ``thank you'' ``mahalo'' for sharing him with us. He poured his heart into serving the people of Hawaii Island, and all of us are better for it.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the remarkable life and legacy of Lucien A. Morin, who passed away this year at 104. Lu, as he was known to all, was a proud World War II veteran.
He began his public career as a Henrietta Town Justice who literally held court in his own home. He then served in the very first Monroe County legislature and as county manager before being elected the first-ever Monroe County Executive. He spent his entire life answering the call to serve.
Lu brought practical wisdom and fairness to each role he took on and led with a spirit of collaboration and a belief that public service should uplift everyone. This was evident in his landmark Morin/Ryan legislation, which strengthened the finances of local governments and our local schools.
Lu Morin leaves us a legacy of integrity and a deep faith in our community. I was honored to know him, to work with him, and to call him my friend. May we continue to carry his extraordinary example forward.
Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 36 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17, 2025, at 9 a.m.
