Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. House Of Representatives U.S. House Of Representatives 20230310

how do we create a new, stable system in the 21st century? can we do that in the 21st-century where we can all thrive and prosper in relative peace? host: the house is about to gavel in at 9:00 a.m.. we appreciate the conversation with you. guest: thank you greta, you as well. host: the house is coming in early. we will bring you to the chamber right now, live coverage on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will now be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. march 10, 2023. i hereby appoint the honorable nancy mace to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, kevin mccarthy, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will now be offered by chaplain kibben. chaplain kibben: would you pray with me. how great are your works, lord, your thoughts are unfathomable. open our minds this day to the vastness of your truth and reveal our need for your law that we would not deceive ourselves with our own understanding. cause us to think of the incredible depth of your knowledge and how limited our own human perspective is that we would discover how much we still need to learn from you. teach us that you are to be found in all of nature's beauty and bounty, and yet you are still greater than all of creation. teach us that even our most profound thoughts of you cannot compare to the breadth and depth of your being. teach us that even when we love you with our wholeselves your love for us surpasses our deepest devotion to you. in your greatness may we in our weakness learn to rely on you for all we need this day and what you have in store for us. in your mystery may we take refuge in the divine plan you intend for us in your unconditionable and incomprehensible love may we receive the mercy you desire for us. in the majesty of your haloed -- hallowed name we pray, amen. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house the approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. thompson. mr. thompson: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain up to five requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: madam speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, i rise today to congratulate carl and betsy long in potter county for receiving the 2023 national outstanding young farmers award. national outstanding young farmers award recognizes that, quote, today's farmers have become an active citizen, participating in everything from local and state government to civic groups and charitable organizations, end quote. quing in 2007 they began farming sweet corn on rented land in central pennsylvania. with hard work, dedication, and help from their three children, they have built a successful farm for green beans, wheat, oaoats and potatoes. low the farm isous 15 years old -- is just 15 years owl it culcultivates 10 million poundsf chipping potatoes, helping to supply pennsylvania's renowned snack companies. their love extends beyond the farm. they are active on several agriculture advisory boards in pennsylvania and participates in ag week and farm fridays in local schools. they have a love for agriculture and community. i commend them on this outstanding achievement. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from new york rise? >> request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> thank you. i rise today to pay tribute to the students of south glens falls. mr. tonko: they recently marked their 46th annual marathon dance a. student driven event to raise money for local families and organizations. this year they raised more than $630,000, adding to a staggering total of more than $10.5 million raised since the event's inception. the success of this marathon dance is proof of the remarkable things our students and young people can achieve. i had the honor of joining them last weekend and seeing firsthand their enthusiasm and their heart united by music, dance, and resounding spirit of giving. these students demonstrate the power that lies in the love of community and desire to do good and fills me with inspiration and hope for both their future and ours. they are movers and shakers in every sense. they are leaders of today. congratulations to the students of glens falls on your incredible, remarkable achievement. go bulldogs. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentlewoman from virginia seek recognition? >> i rise to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. mrs. kiggans: madam speaker, i rise today to recognize the importance of u.s.-israel relationship. our relationship with israel is a mutually beneficial partnership that not only re-enforces america's moral values and strategic interests, but also promotes peace and stability. the u.s.-israel relationship is truly the embodiment of peace through strength. having served 10 years in the u.s. military, i know how volatile this region is and understand a key element of our own national security is a strength and security of israel. the only democracy in the middle east. our two nations face many of the same terrorist threats. the only difference being that israel is surrounded by hostile regional actors. amalicious regeedges like iran continue their quest for nuclear capabilities, it's imperative america does not waiver in our commitment for israel to defend itself n a world that grows more dangerous by the way, weakening our allies would have disastrous consequences for the security of our country and threaten the possibility of world peace. i remain steadfast in my support for israel and look forward to helping advance the cooperation here in congress. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the the gentleman from pennsylvania rise this morning? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, too often the speeches we make on the floor of this chamber emphasize our differences and divisions. but this morning i want to highlight and praise an act of bipartisanship. the creation of the fentanyl prevention caucus. some of you know my family's story and how lucky we are that our son was not victim to fentanyl overdose or poisoning, but many families have not been so lucky. too many. from 2021 to 2022 more than 107,000 people died of overdose or fentanyl poisoning. ms. dean: 67% involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl. whether we focus on the flow of chemicals from china, the trafficking of drugs over our border, or airports or ports of entry, we must come together to stop this poisoning that's killing our loved once. this congress needs to legislate our way out of this tragedy i believe this bipartisan caucus can do just that. i thank my rep co-chairs, reps neguse, issa, calvert for their leatheredship, bipartisan work will save lives. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute mr. lamalfa: thank you, madam speaker. yesterday the president's budget proposal was announced. it contains some of the largest tax hikes in american history. if enacted it would set the corporate tax rate at 28%. a higher level than even communist china. combined state and federal taxes would amount to 32%. this tax burden will primarily fall on where? american workers and consumers. it's broadly accepted by economists on the left and right that corporate taxes hurt wage growth. with labor bearing as much as 25% of the costs in corporate taxes. some estimates even place that burden as high as 70%. raising the corporate tax will hurt american workers, depress their wages, and lower their purchasing power. this is a pro-growth or pro-worker budget posal, it's not -- proposal. it's not even serious. the president must meet with republicans in good faith for spending reductions and work towards a balanced budget like everyday americans do in their homes and their businesses. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. takano: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. takano: madam speaker, i rise today to thank a member of my staff on the house committee on veterans' affairs for his invaluable service to our nation's veterans, this congress, and our country. daniel santa cruz joined our committee in 2020 as our digital director. from the outset he demonstrated an outstanding technical ability and tremendous creative vision. he proved instrumental in helping the committee meet the new digital demands of the covid-19 pandemic, developed, produce,ed directed thousands of hours of compelling video content, created graphical representation of our work for social media platforms, and captured powerful images of committee members hard at work for america's veterans across the world and in our nation's capital. his charm, humor, again rossity have been infectious and commitment to the work of this committee has been impactful. the work of my committee, this congress, and our government to honor and support our veterans was made better by daniel's service and he will be deeply missed. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> madam speaker, unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from michigan is recognized for one minute. mr. thanedar: madam speaker, i stand today to speak about the importance of uplifting small businesses in our country. about 50% of u.s. g.d.p. is generated by small businesses. despite this, big operations seems to always rake in big profits during economic hardship while small businesses struggle to get by. as a result small business owners barely have enough left over funds after payroll to reinvest into their businesses. as a former small business owner, i know firsthand the difficulties these hardworking men and women face. today entrepreneurs, especially women and minorities, find it hard to get access to capital. so i am calling for targeted programs to provide access to capital for black and brown communities and to veterans, disabled, and women-led businesses across this country. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. costa: madam speaker, we have reached a crisis in our health care system across our country. over 180 hospitals mainly of them rural, have closed nationwide since 2005. last month the only hospital serving adults in maderia county was closed. hospitals like one in my district are sounding the alarm about higher costs and low medicare reimbursement rates. what are we talking about here? we are talking about access to critical health care. emergency room services. critical care beds. effective and elective surgery options. women being able to have a place to give birth safely. we are talking about having access to health care in rural areas and throughout the country. congress must act now before more hospitals close. we must include more reimbursement rates, and address nursing and physician shortages f we not act now a nationwide health care crisis will be upon us. my mother once said, jim, if you don't have good health, you don't have anything. every american deserves access to health care. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. for what purpose does the the gentleman from ohio, my friend, mr. turner, seek recognition? mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i rise pursuant to h.res. 199, i call up senate bill 619 to require the director of national intelligence to declassify information relating to the origins of covid-19 and for other purposes, and ask for immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 619, an act to require the director of national intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of covid-19, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 199, the bill is considered as read. the bill shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the permanent select committee on intelligence, or their respective designees. the gentleman from ohio, mr. turner, and the gentleman from connecticut, mr. himes, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. turner. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert into the record extraneous material on s.619. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. turner: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. . mr. turner: i rise in support of s. 619, a bill that require the director of national intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of covid-19. the house companion bill, h.r. 1376, passed unanimously out of the intelligence committee. i want to thank my ranking minority member himes for his bipartisanship and professionalism as we work together to try to ensure the intelligence committee responds to the needs of the house. madam speaker, covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the country with almost every household feeling its effects. the united states death toll from this virus has surpassed one million people. although concrete data is hard to lock down, millions of people are suffering from the long-term effects directly attributed to this virus. it is becoming increasingly clear that school-aged children face hurdles because of long-term school closures. the american people need to know all the aspects, including how this virus was created and specifically, was the natural occurrence of the result of a lab-related event. the house intelligence committee, which oversees our intelligence community, is aware of classified information that could help inform the public why covid-19 as a lab leak theory is not just a possibility but is likely. the intelligence community does have more information about covid-19 than the public is led to believe. much of the information they have can be declassified and disseminated to the public. in fact, the bill we are discussing today would give the american public just a glimpse. al albeit a very important aspect of what the intelligence community holds. this bill, if passed and signed into law, would give the american public a unique insight as to what was happening at a biosafety level at an institute in wuhan, china, in late 2019 and early 2020. this might be key to un-ravelling the truth. i can assure you that the intelligence community could release this information while protecting their sources and methods of how it was collected. in fact, i believe the intelligence community could go further than what is called for in s. 619 and release most of what it knows about covid origins but this is a good start. covid-19 ranks one of this centy's most -- century's most important events. everyone needs to know what our intelligence community knows and s. 619 is the right step in the right direction. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. and the gentleman from connecticut is now recognized. mr. himes: thank you, madam speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. madam speaker, i rise in support of s. 619, the covid-19 origins act of 2023, along with my colleague, the gentleman from ohio, i plan to support this legislation and i urge the house to pass it. and let me stop now to compliment chairman turner on the efforts he's made narrowly to bring this bill to the floor but more generally to make sure the intelligence community operates in the thoughtful, constructive, and bipartisan manner, which it must operate in if we are to protect this nation's national security. the covid-19 pandemic has taken the lives of more than 1.1 million americans and millions more have died worldwide. the american people want to know as much as we can determine about where this pandemic started and critically how we can be ready for the next deadly disease, which will come. determining the precise origins of a pandemic disease with high confidence is challenging under the best of circumstances. in this case, our already difficult task is that much harder bosco individual originate -- harder because covid originated in china. they have obfuscated and obstructed the origins of the disease. china's approach has been deeply irresponsible and dangerous to global public health. it is against that backdrop that in 2021 president biden ordered a 90-day sprint by the intelligence community to analyze the origins of the virus. in august of 2021, the i.c. completed its initial work and a few months later a declassified version of its findings was made public. in short, the intelligence community agencies could not come to an agreement on whether the virus originated from a lab accident or from natural exposure. some individual agencies did reach a judgment, a narrow judgment, about which path was more likely but they could not do so with high confidence simply because we don't have enough reliable information to draw those conclusions. there's a version of the i.c.'s classified assessment that's available to all members through the house security office. around 18 months after the completion of the i.c. assessment, not much has changed. the intelligence community remains focused on this question and i hope that we will have a breakthrough that will allow us to answer these questions once and for all but today we're not there yet. i believe that the i.c. should make as much public as they can, consistent with the overriding need to protect sources and methods. transparency is a critical element of our democracy. the factual grounding of the i.c.'s analysis can be an antidote to the speculation, the rumor, and the theories that grow in the absence of good information. it's important to note that the bill provides the authority to make redaction to protect sources and methods for a good reason and neither the chairman nor i would be supporting the bill if that did not -- if that were not true. i trust the intelligence community and administration will lean forward in making public as much new information as possible without endangering our ability to collect and analyze on these issues going forward. now, i want to mention before i stop and recognize other speakers on my side two important things. first, the pandemic, which is really what is at stake here. whether covid-19 originated from a lab leak or natural transmission at a wet market, the next pandemic disease could originate from either source and it could come from anywhere. in 2022, the intelligence committee released a declassified report looking at how the intelligence community responded to covid-19 and making recommendations for how we can be better prepared for the next pandemic disease wherever it may come from. overall, the report recommended that the intelligence community increase resources for global health security and medical intelligence. and that it needs to move away from a culture that views health security as a lesser priority than so-called traditional hard national security threats. evidence the fact that it was this that killed over a million americans. furthermore, we need to promote complementary efforts between the public health and intelligence communities. public health professionals and their counterparts in the i.c. must work hand in hand if we want to maximize the odds of identifying a novel disease at the earliest possible stage and if we want to give ourselves the best chance of determining the novel disease's origins. let me turn briefly to another important thing that is really at stake here. madam speaker, democracy is rooted in the idea that the people govern. that is their right to determine their own political destiny. but with that right comes an obligation that we don't talk about or think about nearly enough. and that obligation is to be thoughtful, informed, critical thinkers about the issues of the day. and that's not who we are today. today we have elevated because of our political polarization, we have elevated confirmation bias to a secular religion. so even in this conversation about the origins of the coronavirus, what you believe is indicative of where you stand on the political spectrum. for reasons i don't understand, some of our colleagues and many americans are running around with a theory that somehow buttresses their political legitimacy. maybe you do that with u.f.o.'s. maybe you want to believe there's aliens at roswell. when we're talking about a pandemic or something as serious as a disease that can kill millions of americans, that's not ok. and we have to remember our obligation to be thoughtful, critical thinkers. we cannot let our political hopes override the obligations we have to be thinkers. and colleagues, i will tell you, the chairman and i have seen all of the classified information on this and we don't know -- we don't know the origins of the covid pandemic. so whatever is ultimately declassified, i would hope that my colleagues and the american people would approach that information with the humility, the intellectual humility that we need to approach something as serious as a pandemic and how we behave as citizens in a democracy. we don't know. we need to think about whether we want confirmation bias, our tendency to select just those facts which support our pre existing positions -- pre-existing positions in a democracy. at the end of the day, the american people will get the system of government that they deserve. and if we don't get back to being humble about what we know, to being critical thinkers, our democracy will be at risk. i want to close with a quote from a great connecticut writer and humorist, mark twain. he said it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. it's what you know for sure that just ain't so. so i am going to join my chairman in supporting this bill and i hope it passes in overwhelming bipartisan fashion and i hope we take that information and use it for constructive purposes in the service of saving lives and buttressing our democracy. madam speaker, with that i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. and the gentleman from ohio is now recognized. mr. turner: i appreciate my ranking minority member's very -- ranking member's very thoughtful remarks and with that i yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. garcia. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. garcia: thank you, madam speaker, mr. chairman. this is whether to declassify data on the origins of covid. the simplicity of this vote is in stark contrast to the magnitude of the ramifications of the declassification process. by declassifying we will seek clarity, gain security, which is what the american people deserve. by declassifying, we have a chance to ensure that seven million people who died of covid are honored correctly. this is a chance to hold china accountable for covid and seek justice and a reckoning and perhaps most importantly, a chance to prevent another manmade pandemic such as this from wreaking havoc on the planet again. this isn't political at all. declassifying this information is simply the right thing to do. i've personally been cleared to handle classified information since i was 18 years old. the point of classifying information is to protect american lives, whether it's civilians and/or military personnel. information that is classified is material that would cause damage, serious damage, or exceptionally grave damage to national security if made publicly available. and now the irony of this debate, however, is that the release of this data will actually save lives and help prevent the loss of life in the future. it will enhance our security, not degrade it. but the continued overclassification of this data at the highest level actually poses the greatest threat to our nation's security. this is an easy and simple yes vote but the implications of this will determine whether or not we are able to prevent such another catastrophic pandemic from paralyzing us and taking so many lives. i encourage all members from both sides of the aisle to vote yes and enable us to get to the bottom of this, hold china accountable, and defend us against any future c.c.p. threats. with that, madam speaker, i yield the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves and the gentleman from connecticut is now recognized. mr. himes: madam speaker, i yield five minutes to dr. bera of california, a member of the select committee on the coronavirus. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is now recognized for five minutes. mr. bera: thank you, madam speaker. and thank you to the ranking member and the chairman of the house select committee on intelligence. this should be an easy vote because this is just about science. it's about understanding the origins of this virus that created this pandemic, that took at a minimum seven million lives, probably many more than that. it's just about science. it's not -- we're not debating the geography of where this virus originated. we know that. but we're debating how this novel virus evolved. like, this is a brand-new virus. that should go without question. so i hope this is a strong yes vote by both democrats and republicans. i think about this as a doctor and a scientist, someone who spent a lot of my time in congress looking at global health security, looking at pandemic preparedness. i'm proud to serve on the select committee that is looking at coronavirus and the impact of this pandemic. you know, my colleague, another physician, dr. wenstrup, is the chairman of that committee and the ranking member is dr. raul ruiz who, again, i think if we can take the politics out of this, we can actually understand what happened over these past few years, the impact it had not just on the united states but on the entire world and we can work together as democrats and republicans and hopefully the global scientific community to prevent the next pandemic. that's what this is about. now, we -- i don't know if we'll ever find those origins, if the chinese communist party doesn't work with us. they've got to allow the best scientists in the world. it's in their interest as well because they suffered greatly. the chinese people have suffered greatly from this pandemic. they ought to allow the best scientists in the world to go into ground zero, to the hot zone, to wuhan, and try to understand how this virus evolved. maybe it was a wet market. maybe it was a lab leak. it's important for us to understand what it was because that then will allow us to address and shore up the system. if it was a lab leak, we ought to have the highest safety standards in the world if we're doing this kind of research. we ought to look at whether we should do gain of function research. that's a legitimate question. . if it's a lab leak we ought to understand it. come together as a global community and make sure we have the highest standards. if it was a wet market. if this was a naturally occurring virus that came from an animal into a human, we ought to understand that as well. we ought to put in the safety and precautions to make sure that doesn't happen in the future. let's take the politics out of it. today we have a chance as the united states congress to take a big vote, democrats and republicans, to say let's try to figure out what happened. it affected all of us. and we ought to do everything we can as the united states congress, democrats and republicans, as a global scientific community, to prevent this from happening again in our lifetime and hopefully ever again. i urge my colleagues, democrats and republicans, to vote yes on this bill. it will allow us to share information with the public because, again, this affected all of us. i hope we have a strong yes vote on the covid origins bill. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. the gentleman from connecticut yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from arkansas, mr. crawford. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arkansas is recognized for two minutes. mr. crawford: this bill is the beginning of transparency americans deserve regarding covid's entry into our nation. a virus that's killed more than a million of our loved ones here at home and millions more across the world. our colleagues on the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic will piece together all the facts and share them with the public, including the role played by elements of our government and the media try to discredit those who told the truth about covid. this bill is focused on safe disclosure of what our intelligence agencies have learned about the central role foreign actors had on the creation and spread of this deadly virus. it's important that americans and others across the globe learn about the chinese communist party's cover-up of covid's origins at its wuhan research facility. as well as the world health organization stubs role in suppressing this truth. until china and others who echoed china's false narrative face quibility an consequence force that we are inviting the next cover-up. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from mississippi, trent kelly. the speaker pro tempore: the congressman from mississippi is recognized for three minutes. mr. kelly: madam speaker, i rise today to encourage members to support passage of senate bill 619, a bill that requires the director of national intelligence to declassify information related to the origin of covid-19. the need for transparency regarding the origin of this pandemic cannot be overstated. especially as the world continues to grapple with its effect. thank you, chairman turner, for your leadership on this issue. thank you to the senate's intelligence committee for their diligent work. as you know the covid-19 pandemic and the government's chaotic response has had a devastating impact on our nation and the world and has called loss of life, disrupted our economy, and fundamentally changed our way of life. we owe it to the american people to inform them where this virus originated and how. republican members charged with oversight have always been champions of transparency and accountability. by supporting this bill we are showing the american people that we take this responsibility seriously. republicans are keeping their promise to do everything within our power to get the truth and hold those responsible accountable. today-to-date the source of the virus -- to date the source of the virus remains unclear. the american people deserve answers. they deserve to know the truth about the origin of this pandemic. without transparency the public will turn to malign actors for information further undermining our citizens' trust in the government and intelligence agency. as we know trust is a vital component of any successful democracy when citizens do not trust their government, it destabilizes society and strains the fabric that binds our communities together. the intelligence community has the responsibility to provide the american people with accurate information that can help them make informed decisions. by declassifying the information on covid-19, the d.n.i. can help restore the public's trust in our intelligence community n conclusion i urge you to support passage of senate bill s. 619. it's our duty to the american people to do everything within our power to get to the truth. this bill is an important step in that direction. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from georgia, mr. scott. the speaker pro tempore: the the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. scott: thank you, madam speaker. like millions of people around the world, in 2020 i tested positive for covid. i was fortunate after several days in the hospital and 14 days on oxygen, i was able to recover. many were not. americans and the rest of the world deserve to know exactly where this virus started and any details surrounding the origins of the virus that laurened the globe into chaos. if the c.c.p. was not fully transparent during these times, people need to know that as well. how long did they cover it up? how long did they know that this virus had been unleashed? if it's going to be the communist chinese party, our government has to be transparent about how malicious they have become. and the u.s. and other freedom loving nations will have to join together to make sure that we expose their intents to the world. i believe we all have the right to know about origins of covid-19 and i urge my colleagues to support this resolution to require the director of the national intelligence to declassify any of the information that we have on the origins of covid and the c.c.p. thank you. i yield. mr. turner: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut. mr. himes: reserves. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from utah, mr. stewart. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from utah is recognized for two minutes. mr. stewart: thank you. i would like to thank the chairman and the minority leader for their supports on this. in april of 2020, so just months into the pandemic, we had a briefing from various agencies on the intel committee about the origins of the pandemic and at that point one of the agencies said to us we know this did not come from the wuhan lab. and many of us were angry at that. we said to them, how could you possibly know that? and the truth is, they didn't know that. the american people deserve to know the truth. throughout the pandemic dr. anthony fauci has consistently said anyone who would even propose this idea that it came from the lab or some other source that was manufactured in china was nothing but a conspiracy theory. he belittled anyone who suggested that. they tried to silence anyone who suggested that. and he advocated among his fellow scientists to do the same thing. again, the american people deserve to know the truth. and i would defy anyone to give me any possible explanation why they would oppose this bill. this isn't like the movies, you can't handle the truth. the american people of course can handle the truth. they deserve to note truth. this final thought. even now n.i.h. is still listing the wuhan institute for eligibility to receive our federal tax dollars. that makes no sense at all. it's absolute nonsense. we can't do that until, once again, we know the truth. i encourage support for this bill. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. the issue of the origins of covid are so important that our speaker has appointed a select committee on the origins of covid. our next speaker, dr. wenstrup, is the chair of that committee. i yield three minutes to dr. wenstrup. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. wenstrup: thank you. madam speaker, i rise in support of senate bill s. 619, the covid-19 origin act. the american people deserve answers on the origins of the covid-19. a novel coronavirus that sparked a pandemic and killed nearly seven million people worldwide to date. the impact of the pandemic on the american people has been catastrophic. we lost loved ones. everyone's been touched. our physicians, nurse, and health care workers were strained beyond capacity. we had to contend with lockdowns, school closures, resulting learn loss, as well as shut downs and job loss. the depression and suicide spiked that after these measures. many americans still suffer physically, mentally, economically from the impact of the virus. the measures taken during the pandemic. this bill will provide some sunlight for the american people and for scientists and for physicians. i am hopperred to be one of seven physicians on this select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic as dr. bera had referenced earlier. but in order for us to be able to predict, prepare, protect, and prevent against the future pandemic, we need to know how and where this pandemic began. and there are sound reasons to conclude that this particular virus may have resulted from a lab leak in the wuhan institute of virology. in the fall of 2019 well before americans were aware of a problem in wuhan, four unusual things happened at the wuhan lab. multiple researchers became second with covid-19-like symptoms according to a state department fact sheet. the wuhan institute deleted the sequences of virus that is they had in their library. they changed control of the lab from civilian to military. highly unusual. and had a contractor redo the ventilation system in the laboratory. furthermore, we know the wuhan institute was conducting gain of function research on novel back coronaviruses by creating other viruses combining two viruses together to test infectivity in creating them and infecting mice with these viruses for study. and that the wuhan lab had applied to receive u.s. grant funding in order to insert what's called a clear site into novel coronavirus, the same genetic aspect of covid-19 that made it more infectious to humans. last congress i was honored to lead the house intelligence committee republicans in producing our second interim report on the origins of the covid-19 pandemic. this congress i'm fortunate to continue this work as chairman of the select subcommittee where we will work on a bipartisan basis to follow the facts, conduct a fair investigation, and seek to deliver the truth to the american people. this bill we are voting on today to declassify information on the origins of covid-19 virus will provide much needed transparency for americans who have lost so much in this tragedy. but it's only a start. i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this endeavor. madam speaker, i urge the support of this legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from north carolina, dr. murphy. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. murphy: thank you, madam speaker. i rise today in support of s. 619, a bill to require the office of director of national intelligence to declassify all information related to potential leaks between the wuhan institute of virology and the origins of covid-19. we had red flags from covid's origins from day one. if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's probably talk. folks, this screams like a duck. in january of 2020, dr. fauci received emails that promulgated that covid-19 looked engineered and not from the wild. three weeks later to save his own skin he commissioned a scientific paper which, quote, debunked the lab theory. he was academically and intellectually dishonest. why? he did not want the american people to know the truth. the truth is that dr. fauci and his institution funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to promote dangerous gain of function research at the wuhan institute of virology without proper guardrails. that is the key. the wuhan lab was no more set up to deal with this deadly virus than my mother's kitchen. we had people, thousands, millions of people lose their lives, their livelihoods, and their loved ones. this contaje yun -- contagion leaked from the lab and if that is the case the world deserves to know. it is time to call out the duck in the room. release the intelligence that we need to find out the truth. we have been lied to by china. we have even been lied to by our own government leaders. we need the truth. i yield back. we ask our colleagues to please pass this bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: madam speaker, i recognize myself for such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. himes: madam speaker, we are doing pretty well there. but behind the discussion of ducks were some pretty aggressive accusations of lying of american government official, dishonesty, attributions of motives, which is what i'm -- what we are all trying to avoid here. i'll say it again as profoundly -- as profoundly frustrating as it is, we just don't know. and we are entitled to have theories. we are citizens. but we shouldn't be so certain in those theories we are willing to impugn the character and motives of other americans, especially if those americans are in positions of responsibility that need to be trusted in the next pandemic. i'll leave that there. i do want to characterize and substantiate my rather frustrating observation that we just don't know with what the intelligence community believes is the latest assessment on the origins. again i understand this is frustrating, but facts are important. here it is. this is a publicly available document. four intelligence community elements and the national intelligence council assess with low confidence that the virus was likely caused by natural exposure to animal infected -- to animals infected with it. one assess was moderate confidence that the first human infection was likely the result after laboratory associated incident, analysts at three i.c.l. elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation. . it's a frustrating picture is tens of billions of dollars that draw on all kinds of expertise and are fallible like any institution is. that's where they are. sadly, that aggregates to we just don't know. we're entitled to speculate. we're entitled to theory. those theersy are -- theorys are necessarily rooted in. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: i yield to mr. mccormick. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mccormick: if we want to expose something, if we want to bring the truth, that should have been done a long time ago. when we first started seeing this disease in the emergency room, and i was there on the front lines seeing people with fevers for no reason. testing negative for flu. testing negative for strep, pneumonia, urinary tract infection. we had a hard time figuring out how to treat them. we went through a novel disease process. just like they did back in 1918 when we had the original flu pandemic where 26 million people died in about a year. should never come to a point where we become politically motivated. more to the point of why we become so critical of why people should be trusted is when they have bias built into their argument to begin with and that's why we're here to expose. when we have declassified information, i think it will expose that people were politically motivated. they're embarrassed by their choices and they made choices to poli politicize this rather than get to the bottom of this. we cannot stop a disease by misunderstanding where it came from. we cannot have an honest discussion and heal our nation until we have accountability. and i think where the mistrust comes from is the fact that it was made politicized to begin with. and so i think it's fair criticism when you have emails that expose the fact they were trying to spin it a certain way rather than having honest scientific discussion. that's fair criticism. and people should be held accountable if we're going to the bottom of this. and as an e.r. doctor that served the pandemic since before we knew what it was, watching people die in front of me, and lessons, doctors made decisions and in good faith made mistakes but it was in good faith and we want to expose those people that made those decisions out of bad faith. with that i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. the gentleman from connecticut reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized again. mr. turner: thank you, madam speaker. i yield two minutes to the congressman from texas, mr. pfluger. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. pfluger: thank you, madam chair. madam speaker. for nearly three years now, the truth about covid-19 and its origins have been hidden from the american people. we're at a real crossroads here. there should not be a single partisan fight over this issue. we're talking about the lives of so many people not only in our country but also throughout the rest of the world. unfortunately, big government bureaucrats like anthony fauci abuse their positions of power to disguise and distort the facts and to further tyrannical approach to our country. and anyone who dared asked the question about the origins of covid are chosen to -- were silenced, censored, ostracized as conspiracy theorist. lo and behold, we stand with these truths that were called conspiracy theories are turning out to be true. and the glaring example that fauci knew that coronavirus leaked from a lab in wuhan, china. and he spent the next three years dodging, misleading, mischaracterizing the possibility and even using american taxpayer dollars to pay for studies to discredit that very thing. this is not just unfortunate. this is truly astonishing. and we wonder why the american people have a lack of trust in our government. it's because of these kinds of things. my constituents deserve to know the truth. everyone that is here, their constituents deserve to know the truth. and republicans deliver a commitment to america that we would deliver accountability, that we would have a government that's accountable and it starts with things like this. we shouldn't fear government institutions. we should not fear the decisions that are made. but when you hide things and you mischaracterize things and you mislead the public, we do. and that's part of our commitment to america is to uncover those things, to make things transparent, to put things on the table and that accountability is going to have to be for the lives that were lost, the livelihoods that were destroyed and the years together that families were robbed of. pass this bill. declassify this information and let's get to the truth. i yield back. mr. turner: madam speaker, i have no more speakers. i'm prepared to close. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from connecticut is recognized. mr. himes: thank you, madam speaker. and i'll reiterate my support for this bill and my gratitude to the chairman and the republican majority for moving it quickly. this bill fundamentally is about something we haven't talked a lot about today which is transparency. transparency is a cornerstone of our democracy because without transparency the american pueope can't make the decisions that they need to make responsibly as ens -- american people can't make the decisions that they need to make responsibly as citizens of the country. accusations that the truth was hidden from the american people, that taxpayer funds were misused, that dr. fauci had a motive to cover himself, that there was government censorship. there's not one iota of evidence for any of that. and when we say those things without evidence, what we do is we reduce the american people's faith in their government. and eventually when their faith in their government is reduced to nothing, we lose our democracy. or we see people breaking windows downstairs to get into the government's chambers because it has been so discredited. but i'm going to set that aside right now because this is an important bipartisan effort to bring transparency around something that's going to be pretty frustrating for the american people because no matter if it's declassified it won't show the origins of the coronavirus. so this is a really important first step. i hope it will clear up some of the speculation, some of the rumors that are out there. and it is emblematic of something the chairman and i care a lot about which is that unless there's a really good reason to keep something classified, the american people are responsible enough to have that information. so with that i'll thank, again, chairman turner for his work on this issue, for his commitment to bipartisanship, urge support from the whole house for s. 619 and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from connecticut yields back. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. turner: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. i want to begin by thanking my ranking member. this bill comes to the house floor from the senate with bipartisan support in the house and it does so as a result of the leadership of the ranking member, jim himes. i appreciate his commitment to both declassifying information to the importance of this information concerning covid-19 and for the fact that we are working in a bipartisan manner to do so. this will be a very strong statement from this house today that we want to know the origins of covid-19. the american public deserve to know the answers and that we are moving to declassify the information that we have available. and with that i ask for support of senate bill 619 and yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio yields back. all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution 199, the previous question is ordered on the bill. the question is on third reading of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: an act to require the director of national intelligence to declassify information relating to the origin of covid-19, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on passage of the bill. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio seek recognition? mr. turner: madam speaker, i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 419 and the nays are zero. the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from mississippi seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i request one minute to address the house and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the house will be in order. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to honor the incredible achievement and sacrifice of four remarkable women. carmen bird, shea hartley, christian gregor, and mary completed the norwegian foot march on march 4, 2023. they did so in honor of hunter ritter, a veteran, who tragically committed suicide. these four women showed remarkable courage, determination, and selflessness in carrying out this grueling march. they each carried $500 worth of quarters which equates to 25 pounds of weight to dough note to by lowksy high school junior rotc. in doing so they also supported the 22 suicide today that our veterans commit. their physical, emotional spice represent the struggles our veterans face every day. the march was first held in 1915 as a test of incure reince for the nor yeej -- incure rans for the nor regionian army. they demonstrated their solidarity with the brave men and women who serve this country. they have gone the extra mile on this case for 18 miles. mr. kelly: i ask that we please recognize the epidemic that is causing suicides in our veterans and other young people and let's please do something to fix it. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from oregon seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to send an unequivocal simple message to the transgender community. we have your back. the dangerous rhetoric we have seen across the country, including in this very body in the last week, is nothing short of reprehensible. and i, for one, will not allow this hateful, vitt free yolic -- vitriolic rhetoric to go undefended. transgender people need to be loved. they need to be supported. ms. salinas: they need to look to their leaders in washington and trust that we'll protect their rights to live freely and safely. just as we would any other person in america. oregon has consistently led the way in the fight for transgender rights. and i'm so proud to be from a state that prizes support over suspicion. compassion over culture wars. humanity over hatred. in oregon we say gay. and lesbian, and bisexual, and trans and nonbinary, and queer and inner sex and asexual. oregon is proof we can be better than this. for the sake of the transgender community, we must be. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> i rise to address the house for one minute. ask unanimous consent for that purpose and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to honor my friend, edmund morris, who recently joined our lord in heaven. during my time as smith county judge hi the pleasure of working directly with ed in a, an optimistic, gentle patient woman who treated everyone around her with kindness. she was devout in her faith and firmly knew her eternal future was rooted in t she never worried. she consistently encouraged those around her to see the good in every situation and she led by example. she persevered through many obstacles and led the life, full life, passionately serving her community in any way she could. from serving smith county as chief deputy of elections to helping in her church office, to volunteering at her granddaughter's school. in a world where people have the choice to be anything, she chose to be kind. mr. moran: she will be missed deeply by me and so many others. my prayers are with her, family, and friends and all who were blessed to know her. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. it. >> mr. speaker, i rise to discuss how defense industry consolidation is hurting the american people and our national security. in 2022 defense department report shows the intense constriction of the defense industrial base. in 1990 there were 51 prime defense contractors. since then small and mid-sized contractors have been gobbled up. now there are just five, a 90% reduction. at the same time, suppliers have disappeared. tactical missile suppliers down from 13 to 3. satellite suppliers from 8 to 4. this deprives the american people of competition for key elements of our defense and military leaders have complained that current contractors often deliver behind schedule, poor quality products, at too high of a cost. mr. deluzio: this lack of competition is leaving us ill prepared and risking our national security and readiness. a weak or frankly nonexistence antitrust enforcement allowed this to happen. we have to step in to promote competition to give smaller contractors a chance to grow and stave up further consollization daition. i yield back -- consolidation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition? without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to honor the life and service of master trooper james bailey. he was killed in the line of duty one week ago from today. trooper bailey, a native of auburn, indiana, was a decorated 16-year veteran of the indiana state police. he was a warrior. he beat cancer three times. in 2010, trooper bailey was off duty and leaving lunch with his wife when an 87-year-old man collapsed in the parking lot. trooper bailey and his wife, a nurse, began c.p.r. and saved the man's life. while many people call them heroes, trooper bailey simply said, it's what we do. it's what we are trained to do. and that's why we get into this profession. that's who james mahle was, a humble and dedicated public servant. mr. banks: i want to be clear, especially to his children, joseph and sofia, your dad was a hero. and that is how he will be remembered. we will never forget his service and sacrifice to northeast indiana. god bless the bailey family and got bless all of the law enforcement officers who risk their lives every sing daily to keep our families in our community safe. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that when the house adjourn today it adjourn to meet at 4 p.m. on tuesday next. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to take from the speakers' table h.res. 197, and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 6, house resolution 197, resolution providing for the expenses of certain committees of the house of representatives in the 118th congress. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the resolution? the clerk will report the amendment. for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i have an amendment at the desk. the clerk: section 1, committee expenses for the 118th congress, a, in general, with respect -- >> i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the amendment is agreed to. and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> i seek recognition to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today in support of house resolution 212, a resolution i was proud to introduce earlier this week with congressman sorensen and congresswoman pettersen. my resolution is simple and opposes the 30% national sales tax plan proposed by several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. a 30% sales tax would be a disaster for working families in my district who are already dealing with the high price of gas, exorbitant housing cost, and the rising cost of living. it would hit seniors living on a fixed income, especially hard. mr. speaker, the american people deserve more than mere messaging and performative politics over the next two years. this plan is just that. i came to congress to get things done. i'll work with anyone, democrats, republicans, independents to lower costs, simplify the tax code for the middle class, and tackle the most pressing kitchen table issues facing north carolina families. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from south carolina rise? >> thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute >> thank you. mr. speaker, i rise today to address a very important issue in south carolina's first congressional district, the state of south carolina, the united states of america. last week a member of the state legislature in south carolina filed a piece of legislation that would execute women who have abortions. ms. mace: to see this debate go to the dark places, the dark edges where it has gone on both sides of the aisle has been deeply disturbing to me as a woman, as a female legislator, as a mom, and as a victim of rape. i was raped as a teenager at the age of 16. this debate ought to be a bipartisan debate where we balance the rights of women and we balance the right to life. we aren't having that conversation here in d.c. we aren't having that conversation at home. we aren't having that conversation with fellow state lawmakers. this week i filed a bill that would give women greater access to contraceptives by cutting the red tape, reducing the application fees with the f.d.a. and reducing that application process by half. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get onboard with these issues today. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from oregon seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> the american people are fed up with the united states being involved in endless military conflicts around the world. for far too long presidents of both parties have overstepped their constitutional authority engaging in dubious legal gymnastics to continue involving u.s. troops in endless foreign conflicts without congressional authorization. article 1 of the constitution is clear, congress has the sole authority to authorize military involvement in overseas conflicts. once horsed by congress, article 2 of the constitution allows the president to direct the military as commander in chief. miss oscar de la hoya: vng must -- ms. hoyle: congress must reassert its sole authority and not allow the executive branch to sidestep us. as the largest group in the federal government responsible for representing the american people and their interests, congress should engage in debate before the executive branch can involve u.s. troops in wars overseas. tens of thousands of u.s. troops have been put in harm's way and trillions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on overseas military ventures around the world without proper debate or oversight from congress. enough is enough. that's why i support the syria war powers resolution that the house voted on earlier this week. i yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. payne: mr. speaker, i rise today to support president biden's new 2024 budget proposal. this budget is just what the country needs to move forward. it includes caps on insulin payments to $35 for all americans. it restores the enhanced child tax credit and provides up to $3,600 per family per child. it contains $4.5 billion for infrastructure projects. it has $700 million for the hudson river tunnel and greatway -- gateway program and includes $219 million to eliminate lead pipes from drinking water around the country. this budget shows strong leadership and it shows the future of american prosperity. i am proud to support president biden's new budget. now, we need speaker mccarthy to show the same responsibility and leadership with his budget proposal. and with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from west virginia seek recognition? mr. mooney: seek to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. mooney: going to work is more than earning a paycheck. it's a big part of human dignity. too many americans are getting paid not to work. according to a recent stutdy, americans can receive more money to stay home than they could putting in a hard day's work. according to their findings, families of four in three states can receive more than $100,000 in cash and benefits without working. further, 14 states allows a family of four to receive more than $80,000 in cash and benefits without working. in west virginia, my home state, two unemployed parents with two children can make thousands. unfortunately, this is more than essential workers like our firefighters, our truck drivers make in a year. hardworking west virginians help build america from the coal industry to the logging industry. our nation needs mountaineers to keep america moving forward. while it's true the cares act helped americans during the you recall days of the pandemic, the pandemic is over. even president joe biden said as much on "60 minutes." now congress needs to find bipartisan solutions to get americans working again. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> i rise today to introduce my first bill as a member of congress, the leap act. the -- this bipartisan piece of legislation aims to create new opportunities for american workers by supporting apprenticeships and preapprenticeship programs. these training programs are a proven way to address the job skills gap and to get folks ready for careers in growing industries. by providing tax credits to small businesses, this bill will both address the need for more qualified workers and cut educational costs. a win-win for employers and working people. i want to thank former congressman rodney davis, who was the first to introduce this legislation back in 2013, and i want to thank congressman mike kerry for partnering with me to build on this proposal by eliminating age limits and emphasizing preapprenticeship eligiblity. ms. budzinski: i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to supporting career pathways and a chance for everyone to succeed in our changing economy. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new mexico seek recognition? mr. vasquez: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. vasquez: good afternoon. today i rise to honor the life of a local educator, state legislator and hometown hero, mr. jay paul taylor. he was a visionary leader who made a lasting impact on our community and across the state. well, when i think of public service and what it means to be a public servant, i think of jay paul taylor. i think of his kindness, compassion and dedication to our state. new mexico is a better place because of him. jay paul taylor served new mexico house of representatives for nearly 20 years. many refer to him as the conscience of the legislator. he led through his heart, found common ground through bipartisanship and did everything with new mexico in mind. his service to new mexico continued after he retired. a long time serving educator and teacher and principal and served on the new mexico education association two times as president. last august we celebrated his 102 birthday with a visit to his home in las cruces. he had a reputation for passionate educator, advocated for the arts. jay paul taylor was a true friend and mentor to many in new mexico. from the bottom of high heart, i thank him for being a true public servant and dedicating his life to make a positive difference in our state. let's all remember his love for public service and for advancing equitable education in new mexico. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north carolina seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to highlight the significance of investing in education. education is widely seen as a key determinant of social mobility within a person's lifetime. as a father of two school-aged children, justin and kyler, my job is to love them, share with them about the importance of faith, provide for them and ensure they receive a quality education. that's why education is so personal to me. mr. speaker, there are 446 schools in the first congressional district of north carolina. of those, 48%, nearly half are fully funded by title 1. mr. davis: and schools within 13 of 19 counties i represent, 100% rely upon title 1 funding. mr. speaker, we must invest in our public education system to set our kids up for a lifetime of success. while laying the ground work for generations of prosperity across eastern north carolina and america. so as part of my live the dream down east tour, i will continue visiting schools in every county of our district. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio seek recognition? ms. kaptur: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. ms. kaptur: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to celebrate the recently named best coastal small town in america, sandusky, ohio. now, sandusky's home to cedar fair, the roller coaster, and we invite you to come and this recognition is a true accomplishment. the local clubhouse number 3 sports social erupted into cheers last friday when dozens of residents at a watch party heard the results come in. their enthusiasm is emblematic across small towns across america to gather achievements both big and small. while this is a big accomplishment for a small ohio town, it truly represents the best of america. sandusky derives its name from the seneca native tribe and translates to cold water but the residents of this town are the warmest, kindest you'll ever meet. visit sandusky. come to enjoy our hospitality and enjoy the astounding beauty of lake erie's fresh water south coast and warmest coast throughout the great lakes. thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 9, 2023, the gentleman from texas, mr. roy, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. roy: i thank the speaker. yesterday, we were given the president's budget, which outlines the president's so-called priorities. well, his priorities were pretty clear. continue to expand government at the expense of the american people. expand government, a government that is at odds with the freedom, well-being, and prosperity of the american people every single day. simple truth is, as my friends in the house freedom caucus and a large number of my other colleagues in the republican conference have been articulating, we need to shrink washington so that we can grow america. we cannot sustain and grow out of the $32 trillion of debt and the $20 trillion of debt that the congressional budget office just outlined that we're going to add over the next decade. we will not, as a country, survive through that if we do not get economic growth to the 3%, 3.5%, 4% levels we saw from president reagan, president clinton and you won't get economic growth if you don't get the federal government off the backs of the american people and stop empowering them to target americans, to undermine americans' freedoms. biden's budget would increase taxes and implement price controls to the tune of $3 trillion. that's the president's plan. and what do the media do? they run around and go, oh, he's reducing the deficit. he's reducing the debt. yet, by his own measures, he'd be increasing the debt another $17 trillion over the next decade. the american people look to this body and this town with utter amazement at how stupid we could possibly be. if you set out and tried to be more incompetent and more stupid than the people that have been running this town for as long as i can remember, i'm not sure how you can do it. seriously. that would be a great exercise. could anybody, if you put together 435 people here, 100 people on the other side, presidents and bureaucrats, swapped out over the last, say, thr three decades, could it be any worse? it's like weilliam buckley said he'd rather be governed by the first 435 people out of the phone book than the 435 people we send here. is he wrong? seriously. a great inquiry for us to consider. $32 trillion in debt. border's wide open. we've got american citizens unable to carry out their livelihoods. men and women in uniform who are being denied promotion, the ability to do their job in the defense department. we got kids shut out from their schools, forced into corners wearing masks, mental health issues, set back. that's the best we got? that's the best we can do? we reject that. we believe in america. we believe in americans. we do not believe in a investing in washington, investing in the federal bureaucracy is good for the american people. we believe the opposite. so the president wants to tax and regulate $3 trillion to save increasing the debt $3 trillion over the next decade, down to $17 trillion. oh, boy. that will do it. we propose an immediate savings of $3 trillion right now by cutting back the woke weaponized federal bureaucracy that's undermining the freedom of the american people so that we can make them more free and prosperous so that they can grow this economy so we can shrink the deficit, reduce debt, and reclaim the inheritance of being an american for our kids and grandkids. think about what biden's budget would do. it would spend total of $6.8 trillion next year. $500 billion more than this year. $2 billion -- $2 billion for the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives to increase regulations of the firearms industry. i got thousands of texans that i represent who are facing being made a felon because of bureaucrat a.t.f. decided exactly what a pistol brace may mean on how their gun may be regulated. think about that. some gal, some guy bought a weapon under the law. now, a bureaucrat says you have to do this, register this or you're a felon. . i think the court would strike this down as unconstitutional. why would any republican fund a bureaucracy that will make a felon out of a law-abiding citizen back home? some of my colleague republicans don't do that. how about $3.9 billion for the department of homeland security's climate resilience programs. i think about that. $3.9 billion for the department of homeland security which, by the way, refuses to secure the homeland, allowed 72,000 americans to die from fentanyl poisoning, allows cartels to get empowered and slaughter americans in the streets in northern mexico. without a peep from this administration. nothing. let's give that department $3.9 billion for climate resilience programs. does anybody wonder why the american people look at us and say what in the hell are you doing? $2 billion increase for the e.p.a. to target american energy. now, i want to remind people, i remind all the kids out there watching going on, oh, my god, the world will die, the climate change. we are going to get extinguished. really? oh, really? why is it that my democrat colleagues who believe that the production of co-2 will be the end to humanity and the earth as we know it? well, not remotely consider nuclear power which produces not a ounce of co-2. but they won't consider it. why? because it's a religion. it's climate fetishism. it's about government control. it's about being able to target the oil and gas industry to undermine the well-being of the american people by empowering bureaucrats so they can feel good about themselves while china continues to pump out more co-2 than any other country ratcheting it up week by week. 1100 coal-fired plants in china, they build two a week, while we sit around and play games with solar panels and windmills leaving our grid in texas unreliable now almost 50% wind and solar and we have to go, wait, what happens on a windless, cloudy day? huh? i don't know. how do you want to power up your schools or hospitals or your homes or businesses? could it be that you have to rely on coal or gas or nuclear power? of course you do. yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, not here, of course, with all due respect neither of my colleagues on this side of the aisle with the exception of the speaker, this is how we do things in washington. this is debate. a $2 billion funding increase for the internal revenue service is in the president's budget. i want every american to understand that. they just passed a bill last summer supposedly called the inflation reduction act that gives the i.r.s. another $80 billion to expand. that's quhat american people want -- that's what the american people want, is it? more i.r.s. agents to go target more americans to raise at most by the c.b.o.'s only estimate $100 billion to $200 billion over 10 years. are you going to spend $80 billion to go target american citizens to bring in more money. by the way the i.r.s. targets poor people and north three to five -- minorities three to five times more than other americans. you got $80 billion. what does biden do? that's not enough. $2 billion more for the i.r.s. genius. $100 million of the department of education and grant money for communities to promote racial and socioeconomic diverse knit their schools. $62 million for the d.o.j. to exploit the face act to target pro-life americans. we could go on and on. the amount of money given to agency after agency, bureaucrat after bureaucrat to target the american people. the f.b.i., to target my now friend, scott smith in loudoun county, whose daughter was assaulted in a school, he dared to go to the school board. he got challenged by law enforcement. and the d.o.j. was going to be putting him on a list as a domestic terrorist because the national school board association was including with the white house to do so. is that what we want to fund? a department of justice that would put a dad on a list as a domestic terrorist because he went to a school board to try to defend his daughter who was assaulted in a bathroom. that's what this administration wants to prioritize. funding a woke weaponized bureaucracy that is undermining freedom. they want to fund the f.b.i. that went after mark houck in philadelphia, pennsylvania, for daring to defend his son when they were outside an abortion clinic. they were exercising their first amendment rights. he defended him without anything significant happening. they were not prosecuted by state law. but the feds went in and a swat team, 7:00 in the morning on a sunday, his whole family. coming on into the house threatening mark houck. is that what we want to fund? is that what we want to use the power of government for? how about the $16,000 -- it's just $16,000. i real liez that. chicken feed -- realize that. chicken feed in this establishment. state department funding for a pro-prostitution lgbt group in colombia. is that how we want our tax dollars spent? it's just $16,000. doesn't mean anything. does it? it does. $1.9 million in department of education funding for an illinois nonprofit that treats teachers to center equity in the classroom. we need our kids to know math, how to read, science, how to lead the world, how to beat china. we have $1.9 million to center equity, whatever the hell that means. $2 million for the state department's race ethnicity and social inclusion unit. as if the state department is out doing wonderful things in the first place these days. how about $158 million in economic law enforcement and military support for mexico, pause, yes, you just heard that correctly. we, the taxpayers, give $158 million to mexico for economic law enforcement and military support while we are getting flooded at our border, cartels are absolutely running amuck, and owning the state of mexico as a narcoterrorist state, running fentanyl into america, and killing americans in mexico. congratulations, american people. you bought, with $158 million a narcoterrorist state that is undermining our freedom and liberty, killing americans, endangering migrants and texans. congratulations, americans. $34 million for the office of secretary of homeland security, mayorkas, $34 million to screw up america. congratulations to the american people on how your tax dollars are being spent. $1.7 billion, $1.7 billion for the a.t.f. that i described earlier that will make owners of the $10 to 40 million pistol braces in the united states felons. $6.3 billion for anthony dr. fauciy's -- fauci's niaid which was weaponized to completely lock down the united states and force vaccines on millions of americans. massively increasing the profit of pharmaceutical companies, pfizer and moderna, $100 billion, under government mandates for vaccines, government mandates for vaccines with liability protection for the companies for a vaccine that even the morons in the department over at c.d.c., n.i.h., f.d.a. are now at least acknowledging didn't really do much for transition. oh, yeah, let's give them $6.3 billion. $128 million for the office of the c.d.c. director who actively misled americans about covid vaccine efficacy while c.d.c. and big tech included to suppress vaccine information which we know to be true. we saw testimony yesterday. our own colleague, thomas massie, had his own social media posts being edited and targeted in a disinformation campaign. because anyone who dared question the wisdom of anthony fauci, anyone who dared question the government mandate that you stick a needle in your arm because they say so, because they politicized a virus and a vaccine, you are going to be setaside. there was going to be disinformation. social media, twitter in collusion with all those guys. shutting down free speech. we should be horrified that the united states of america with the first amendment to the constitution that is supposed to protect free speech not for thomas massie as a member of congress, yes, for him, too, but for every american. every american regardless of the, quote, truth of what you're saying. the government doesn't decide what truth is. that's the whole point of free speech. and yet we are funding the very tyrants in the executive branch shutting down free speech, mandating vaccines, using the power of government to go after people and shut down their lively hoodz, undermine freedom, undermine economic activity, and put us $32 trillion in debt so our kids and grandkids are going to inherit a bankrupt tyrannical america. we should change that. we should reject that. the great news is americans across this country are rejecting it. they are saying no. they do want to live free. they don't want a government that's shutting down their ability to live free or their kids and grandkids. they do want to send their kids to schools that teach their kids that america is great and good and teach them the tools they need to succeed in life rather than teach them that they should be ashamed of their country or be a victim. american people under covid woke up. more parents are homeschooling their kids. more parents are looking for private school. more states are adopting school choice. more businesses are rejecting the mandates and the vaccine mandates. more individuals are saying no to those mandates. god bless the young man who is in the united states navy who rejected the vaccine mandate and because of our bill that we finally jammed through in december as republicans isn't being kicked out of the military, but he's still being harassed. he's still being denied the commanding officer job he always wanted. he's still being denied the ability to advance. they are going after him to pay the $75,000 of previous student loans. that must end. $122 million for the world health organization which pushed lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and included with the chinese communist party to cover up its role in covid's origin, and now with this administration wants to control our health care and control how we are going to deal with vaccines in the future. why would any republican vote to fund the world health organization today? why? we should not. we should reject that. we are americans. we decide how we are going to live. $234 million for the e.p.a.'s clean water program, so-called, under waters of the united states, wotus, that put a 78-year-old veteran in jail for violating the waters of the united states by digging ditches on his land. . that is your government at work, ladies and gentlemen. $456 million for the e.p.a., quote, clean air programs. everybody wants clean air. i don't know anybody who doesn't want clean air. i don't know any state regulators who don't want clean air. but what we don't want is that to be used as an excuse to carry out the new methane tax, drive gas prices via the ethanol mandate and destroy reliable coal and natural gas power plants via regulation which is precisely what it's going to do. yet we're all just going to sit by as republicans and go, oh, well, shrug, i guess that's just what we do. we got to increase government. oh, all these kids are running around going, well, we got climate change, what are we going to do? how about we embrace clean burning american natural gas, develop more nuclear power, and recognize that china and india are the ones that are vastly growing and producing co-2 by developing more coal fired plant, while we sit around and we play games, as i said earlier, with wind and solar, leaving us with unreliable grids, living on unicorn energy policies. $108 million in woke e.p.a. environmental justice, funding that will funnel through e.p.a.'s new office of environmental justice and external civil rights. $108 million of your taxpayer money, when we're $32 trillion in debt, for environmental justice. you literally can't make up how stupid we are. literally, you just can't. like, no, no, no. imagine the founding fathers, wait a minute, hold on. so in 2023 we're going to be $32 trillion in debt, we're not going to actually secure our borders as a sovereign nation, allow them to be wide open, we're going to submit to the authority of international organizations to tell us what to do, fund those international organizations to tell us what to do. we're going to fund massive bureaucrats to create things like the so-called environmental justice department with $108 million, when we're spending $1.5 trillion more every year than we take in. that's just like the tip of the iceberg. how stupid can a people be? the american people aren't stupid. that's why they look at congress with utter disdain. but we're stupid. unless we change. and that's my request to my colleagues on this side of the aisle, is that we demand change. when there's a debt ceiling fight this summer, when the president wants to play chicken and russian roulette with the debt ceiling increase to borrow more money, to raise our credit card limit, we should demand change. we should demand actual change. we should demand immediate change. when we say return spending for the bureaucratic state to pr pre-covid 2019 levels, and when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the president say, you can't do that, you remind them about the $122 million for the world health organization or the $108 million for the, quote, environmental justice programs. or the $15 million for the united nations bodies that develop the paris agreement. just that alone. how about $7 million in department of interior funding for the monarch butterfly. $20 million in earmarks dedicated to sidewalks. $20 million dedicated in federal funding for sidewalks. boy, there's a real federal nexus there, huh? article 1, section 8, thou shalt fund sidewalks. as nine -- asinine. yet that's what we do. it's like breathing for members of congress. just keep funding crap because, well, i don't know, i got a dinner to go to and i can't bother to peel back the appropriations bills or the big omnibus bill that's sent over by a bunch of senators who are running to their stake dinners and can't even -- steak dinners and can't even bother doing appropriations bills in the first place, including 18 republicans who voted for a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill which i will constantly remind all 18 of them and all americans of those 18 who voted for a massive $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that denied us the ability to secure the border, expanded the size and scope of the federal government. it is not just a singular one-party problem, ladies and gentlemen. this body needs a little religion. actual religion. and a little bit of fiscal sanity religion. we can change that. we can shrink washington. massively right now in year one, we can shrink washington so that we can get it out of the way and grow our country back to prosperity. that is step one in reclaiming our american birth right. shrink washington, grow america. we can save over $3 trillion over the next decade if we cut the funding of the bureaucracy back to pre-covid levels and cap future growth. rescind $91 billion of unon gated covid money -- unobligated covid money just sitting over there right now waiting for a bureaucrat to find something to spend it on. end the unfair, unlawful $400 billion student loan bailout that the president promised that is going to be deficit spending this year. just boom, $400 billion of 2023 deficit spending. for what? paying off the loan of some kid who went to college, got a sociology degree and is hanging out in his parent's basement tweeting and sitting on instagram and trying to, you know, finds a job -- find a job. oh, no, we got to pay off that kid's loan. but the plum who are didn't go take out that loan to go to -- plummer who didn't -- plumber who didn't take out that loan to go to some college with some white liberals who pat themselves on the back about how compassionate they are for brown people, because that's what they do, let's pay off their loans, but let's make the plumber eat it. that's crazy. absolutely crazy. we will reward irresponsibility instead of actually telling the hardworking american who does it all the right way, you're the one that gets rewarded. under no circumstances should republicans vote to fund, vote to increase the debt to borrow to fund a $400 billion student loan bailout for rich, liberal, white elitists, for the most part, this is a statistical matter, while we're leaving hardworking americans who didn't take out those loans, or like my wife, the daughter of a single mom who took two jobs, worked hard to send her to a state university, who worked to pay off her loans, she's still paying them. 20 years since we graduated from law school, my wife is still paying off the remaining vestiges of her law school student loans. after paying her way and getting loans to go to texas a&m and the university of texas school of law, doing the right thing. driving a 2000 corolla with no options for like a decade. that's what you do if you're responsible. that's how you're supposed to live. we can save that money right now and do more good for the american people than funding and paying off these student loans. we can reclaim the $80 billion of internal revenue service money that's sitting in a pot over there right now. we can reform welfare programs to get people back to work, protecting social security, retirement and medicare benefits in the process. and we can grow america by expanding liberty and promoting economic growth, forcing policy changes to make the government do its job, curb regulatory power by enacting the reins act to make congress decide if the regulations by bureaucrats should be enacted, if they have a major economic impact. these are all things we can do right now and save up to $3 trillion over 10 years as a first step to shrinking washington and growing america. that's our plan. the president's plan is to expand washington and undermine america. does the gentleman need -- how many? for this topic or in general? can we -- are you on the clock? can we -- why don't we go about 10 or 15 and then yield. is that ok? i'd yield to the gentleman from virginia. >> thank you, mr. roy, for your leadership once again. and in particular on this all-important issue of the fiscal and economic stability of our country, but more than that, not just the fm part of it -- financial part of it which we cannot overstate, we can't overstate the harm being done to our country from a spending stand point with $32 trillion in national debt, on the backs of our children and our grandchildren, $100,000 per citizen. but in addition to that, how that debt and how that spending has accumulated for the purpose of literally harming the american people. mr. good: how our own government has become weaponized against its own citizens. trying to control every aspect of our lives, trying to control decisions like whether or not we can use a gas stove, whether or not we can choose what kind of car we want to drive, whether or not we can heat our cool our homes the way that we want to. whether or not we can exercise our god-given, constitutionally protected second amendment rights. whether or not we can make decisions for ourselves on whether or not we can operate our business, earn a living, educate our children in the way that we want to, without the heavy hand of government coming in. so we've got $32 trillion in national debt, $100,000 per citizen. and what is this president's response with the budget proposal that he rolls out yesterday? to increase spending about 56% beyond where it was pre-covid. so to go from $4.4 trillion in spending this president wants to increase it by $2.5 trillion to $6.9 trillion. that $6.9 trillion for just one year, mind you, is about $20,000 per american citizen. how many americans today would vote to spend -- to borrow and spend, we have to put borrow in front of all of it, to borrow and spend $20,000 on their personal credit card to do things that are not only helpful to them, but much of which are harmful to them, on top of the $100,000 in national debt that we have per citizen today? thank god for republicans who are going to come into the gap and stand on the wall, defend the american people and bring some stability, finally some fiscal stability to our country, and cut the spending, deal a blow against the woke weaponized government that is assaulting and harming the american people, and we're going to do that with the opportunity that we have as we face the debt ceiling limit. we're going to utilize this opportunity of our new found congressional house -- newfound congressional house rules that are going to allow us to put reforms in place for not just this year and next year but for the future, to put us on a path to fiscal responsibility and, congressman roy from texas, i want to thank you for showing leadership once again on the most important fundamental issues for our country. mr. roy: i thank the gentleman from virginia and i thank him for his leadership. we joined together with our colleagues in the house freedom caucus this morning to announce what we believe is the -- i'd say bare minimum, if you will, the sort of baseline for resetting the table on how we deal with spending and, importantly, empowering the american people. by shrinking washington and growing america, because we trust the people to do it. not government. this is an age-old debate. but this is something where leviathan, this great beast, this thing we call the federal government, is growing and expanding in power in ways that should concern every american. just yesterday in the house judiciary committee there were conversations about the power of the federal government being used to chill speech, to target american citizens, to shut down their first amendment rights. think about it. is there anything more concerning than the power of the government being used to chill the fundamental rights given to us by our creator as reflected in the bill of rights than what we're seeing right now, the f.t.c. going after, right now, targeting, they want to know, wait, who is involved with all of this? right, they're actually targeting journalists, targeting private citizens. is that what the power of is that what the power of the government supposed to be used for i ask the gentleman from virginia? mr. good: clearly not. the loss of trust and confidence to the degree it's been lost in the last two years in our federal government, in our election system, in our government agencies, even in our department of injustice i would call it is just so damaging to the future of our country. how do we get that back? how do we restore it? we start by not funding it. not funding those agencies, those bureaucracy that are perpetuating such harm on the american people. you made the point today so well, we talk about going back to precovid spending at $4.4 trillion. at that point that was record spending in the history of the country. that was leading us to some, at that point, maybe $25 trillion in national debt, untold amount we haven't had since world war ii. that was the precovid. that was out of hand. that was out of control. it's just this president who has taken it to a new level. $10 trillion in new spending in the first two years of the administration has never happened before in the history of the country. but it's not just the dollars which, if this was good spending, meaning things we thought were justified, if you will, or positive things, we don't have the money, we can't afford it, we are bankrupt, but worse than that, when we are spending money literally to make our military weaker. we are spending money literally to keep our border open to the mexican crime cartels. we are spending money literally to harm our kids in schools. we are spending money literally to try to ruin the country. if you were setting out two years ago to try to ruin the country, what would you do differently than what this administration has done while borrowing the money to do it? mr. roy: i asked earlier if you set out over the last two or three decades to do a worse job than the leadership of this country this chamber, the senate, the bureaucracy, and the white house could you imagine doing a worse job than over the last three decades? in truth, the amount of debt that has been accumulated, in 2003, when i was a baby staffer for a senator on the other side of this building, the national debt was about $6 trillion. mr. good: couldn't imagine it at that time. mr. roy: right. it's now $26 trillion more than that. and the president is patting himself on the back for saying, well, we are not going to increase the debt by $20 trillion we are going to increase it by $17 trillion over the next decade by taxing and regulating the american people in oblivion. the last question here and then we'll in a couple minutes i want to yield to my friend from west virginia, but would it surprise the gentleman that we are spending $158 million in economic law enforcement and military support for mexico. so again the american people, you and i, we are funding to the tune of $158 million mexico's law enforcement and military while it's becoming a narcoterrorist state, cartels are literally killing american citizens in mexico, infiltrating our country, causing 72,000 dead americans from fentanyl poisoning. this is the thing the american people don't understand. does gentleman agree? mr. good: we are borrowing an additional $150 million to send it to mexico that is controlled by the crime cartels so they can utilize that funding to invade our southern border with the individuals allowing to pass-through their country trafficking drugs, human trafficking, sex trafficking, who knows what, hundreds of thousands every month. we are going to borrow $150 million to send it to them to help them do it. mr. roy: that's correct. if the gentleman doesn't mind i'll end with a few minutes on the border and yield to the gentleman from west virginia. i thank my friend from virginia coming down. on that point of what we are funding, $4.5 million encounters of illegal aliens since the biden administration. 7,000, 8,000 migrants cross ago day. 1.3 million got aways. nearly 1.7 million illegal aliens released into the united states. that means we have released more into our communities than the population of at least 11 individual states. under this administration there's been surges of known or suspected terrorists at the southwest border. zero in fiscal year 2019. three in fiscal year 20. 15 in fiscal year 21. 98 in fiscal year 22. 53 so far after one quarter in fiscal year 23. of individuals that are affiliated with known or suspected terrorists at the southwest border. last summer 53 migrants died in a tractor-trailer in san antonio which i represent cooked in the texas heat. and that is somehow compassion? 880 migrants have died crossing the u.s.-mexico border in fiscal year 22. and that does not count the thousands that is have died across south texas and other places on ranches. doesn't count the little girl sitting in stashes houses as we speak getting sold in the sex trafficking trade. while mayorkas and biden fiddle while our nation's borders are burning. just last week four americans traveling to mexico, one of them a mother of six, they were attacked by cartels in broad daylight. two are dead. two are getting care. and we give $158 million to mexico for law enforcement and military. this is why today i'm reintroducing my legislation to designate these drug cartels as the terrorist organizations that they are so that any individual associated with them that provides material support to a designated f.t.o. would be sanctioned, they could be pursued, lawfully, materials included, but not limited to providing weapons, safe houses, lethal substances. representatives and members of a designate f.t.o. would be subject to removal, financial institutions could be targeted. the main point is to make clear that these dangerous cartels are the equivalent of isis and al qaeda right off our border, killing americans, killing mexicans, turning mexico into narcoterrorist state, giving china an avenue to get to the united states to pump fentanyl into our communities, and this administration is doing nothing. and this congress must not continue to fund a government that is at war with the american people. fund ago woke weaponized federal government that is undermining our freedom, undermining our prosperity, undermining our liberty. it is our duty as republicans and all members of congress to use the power of the purse to defund the executive branch that is tir ranically at odds with the well-being of the american people. with that i would be delighted to yield to my good friend from west virginia and appreciate his great service to our country and look forward to hearing from him. mr. mooney: thank you. i appreciate the passion of my good friend from texas and many of the points he's making need to be heard and understood. even if it's uncomfortable. the truth has to be told. mr. speaker, i rise today to talk about legislation i'm promoting to return the united states to the gold standard. as was discussed earlier our nation is facing an inflation crisis not seen in over 40 years. inflation is a regressive tax hurting lower income americans more than anyone else. west virginians have seen the value of their savings erode before their very eyes as a result of the reckless tax and spending spree of president joe biden and the washington democrats, and an overzealous federal reserve. thanks to democrats, your 401-k is more like a 301-k and will go lower if they stay in power. today our national debt is over $32 trillion. which is borrowed not only from americans but also from foreign adversaries. we know who is responsible for the current debt crisis, but the question has to be asked, what in our country's history allowed us to get to this point? the answer ask actually be traced back to 1971 when president richard nixon took the united states off the gold standard. rather than tackle the root causes of economic challenges, nixon severed the dollars' convertibility to gold once and for all. he said at the time that that would actually combat inflation. a well-known and respected economist warned that taking the united states off the gold standard would actually only exacerbate these problems. what followed was a period of severe inflation rivaled only by what we are seeing today. domestic production became more expensive, and corporate profits declined. so companies were encouraged to shift production abroad, overseas, or labor costs were cheaper. today our number one economic rival is china. which continues to attract american companies due to the cheapness of production there. the gold standard as we know it is not actually using the gold as currency but rather tying the dollar bill directly to the value of that gold. under the gold standard any american would be able to trade their dollars for a fixed amendment of gold. by linking the value to the dollar of gold the money supply could be increased if the supply of gold increases. this connection protects the purchasing power of your hard-earned tax dollar. the gold standard would protect against washington's irresponsible spending habtsz and the creation of money out of thin air. prices would be shaped by economics rather than instincts and wishes of federal bureaucrats. with the gold standard no longer would our economy be at the mercy of the federal reserve and reckless washington spenders. through government mismanagement and economic manipulation is it any surprise many americans are looking for alternatives to the u.s. dollar in crypto currencies? americans are losing confidence in our currency. it is long past time for congress to begin considering a return to the gold standard. that's why i'll be introducing legislation to do exactly that as i have in previous congresses. under my proposal the second of the treasury would define the u.s. dollar in terms of fixed weight of gold based on the market price. while allowing dollar bills to be exchanged for gold at that rate. had the united states been on the gold standard or some other fixed standard, we would not be in the inflation crisis we are in today. i hope to work with the new republican majority to make sure this issue gets the attention it deserves. thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to address my bill, the expanding access for capital for rural job creators act. earlier this year the house resoundingly passed my bipartisan expanding assets to capital for rural job creators act. rural small businesses face unique challenges that big city businesses do not. nearly 20% of the united states' population lives in rural areas. yet businesses in rural areas raised under 2% of total capital over the last three years. west virginia, which i'm so proud to represent, is a very rural state where no city has a population greater than 50,000 people. so my legislation simply requires the security and exchange commission, s.e.c., advocate for small business capital formation office, to identify and report to congress those challenges, rural small businesses face when trying to access our capital markets. this will make it easier for congress to then act to address these problems. my bill would make it easier for congress to do our jobs and make sure rural small businesses like in west virginia are not left behind. i hope the senate takes up this commonsense measure promptly. thank you, mr. chairman, for yielding. i yield back the balance of my time to the gentleman from texas. keep up the good work. mr. roy: i thank the gentleman from west virginia and appreciate his strong passion representing the great people of west virginia. he's a good friend and glad he could join us here today. earlier i was talking about the need for this country to reclaim economic growth in order to dig ourselves out of the hole that this absurd institution and lack of leadership from washington, d.c., has created more the american people in the form of $32 trillion in debt. ridiculously stagnant economic growth. after decades of being able to achieve growth in the 3% and 4% range we are now sitting in the doldrums of 1%-type economic growth. that might even be rather robust in the era of joe biden. i'd like to yield to my friend, the gentleman from north carolina, to expand upon this important point. >> i thank mr. roy for yielding. mr. roy, i -- the president's budget recommendation came over a month late yesterday, and there was one detail i read in the "new york times" so it must be true, although that's the only place i have had a chance to see it yet, what immediately popped into my mind when i read this detail is that karine underpierre said last week, the president's economic plan is working for the american people. . that popped back into my head because the detail disclosed by "the new york times" is, the administration predicts economic growth in this fiscal year, not 3.5%, not 4%, certainly. not 2.5%. not 1.5%. .6%. mr. bishop: you have to start talking about economic growth and what the economists call basis points because it's so small. so if the economic plan of the biden administration is working for the american people, that means 60 basis points of economic growth anticipated in the year. and guess what the biden administration says about that. we should do nothing different, we should keep doing the same thing that's producing .6% of economic growth exempt one other thing. we should pile the burden of a lot more taxes on the economy. because apparently that's -- because what do we need? 30 basis points of economic growth? republicans believe we need to change. i yield back to the gentleman from texas. mr. roy: i appreciate my friend from north carolina and i inquire how much time we have remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has eight minutes remaining. mr. roy: i appreciate it. i don't think i'll use every bit of that. i appreciate the point the gentleman from north carolina just made because it's critically important and it merits at least one final repetition. that this great country racked up the level of debt that we currently have today relative to the size of its economy in 1946. but why was that? to rid the world of fascism. to confront our enemies, defeat those enemies and protect this great country. and then we embarked for 50 years and grew ourselves to the point to be able to balance the budget by 2000. with strong economic growth. it took that much time and here we sit today in 2023 with $32 trillion of debt, sitting at the president's own admission of 60 basis points economic growth this year, he wants his grand solution to be, oh, we'll just rack up $17 trillion more debt in the next decade because i'm going to save $3 trillion by taxing the american people and regulating the american people. it doesn't work. this is president biden's actual form of voodoo economics. he's going to level this country, layer mountains more debt on our kids and grandkids, all while funding the very things that are undermining our ability to have economic growth, prosperity and freedom. as i noted before, the millions of dollars going to the e.p.a. to turn an american citizen into a felon and put them into jail because he had a pond on his ranch, the millions of dollars in the name of clean air that is going to regulate with methane regulations to drive the price of gas, the price of energy up for the average american. every single american should demand of his or her representative in this body that we stand up to a tyrannical executive branch overstepping its bounds, yunldz mining our troop -- undermining our freedom, undermining economic growth, and every member of this body should look to cut spending this year of the federal bureaucracy, return it to pre-covid levels as a baseline, save $3 trillion by getting government out of the way, restore economic growth and hope and opportunity for our kids and grandkids. stop funding the very things that are undermining our well-being. secure our country, secure our border, have a sparingly used but lethal nonwoke military that will kill people and destroy things when they need to and restore the greatness of this country by shrinking washington and growing america. and with that, i would yield back to the chair. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair and not to a perceived viewing audience. under the speaker's announced policy of january 9, 2023, the gentlewoman from the virgin islands, ms. plaskett, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. ms. plaskett: thank you very much, mr. speaker. and, you know, it's so exciting to be up here and to have -- to be able to have this discussion. i want to thank the minority leader, my colleague and good friend, mr. hakeem jeffries, for allowing me this time to direct everyone's attention to the importance of this month. i know that it is women's month and we've been hearing so much about this, but what's an honor for me is to stand before you today because it is also virgin islands history month. i stand on the shoulders of strong virgin islanders who came before me, a people who are known for their courage, leadership, sacrifice and, most importantly, their resilience. the virgin islands is known for so much more than just white sandy beaches and as a popular vacation destination. i tell people all the time, there's more than just the beaches, a reason why seven nations have fought, fought and done what was necessary to attempt to own these beautiful islands. we are made of culture-rich lands and a diverse history. though not always pretty, there's great beauty in our past that shaped our present and directs us towards our future. like most caribbean countries, the virgin islands history begins with the story of precolonial inhabitants of the island and, of course, of slavery. and even beyond that, to a rich history of people, families, of communities working and striving every day. many people are unaware that the virgin islands is the only place that is part of the united states where columbus actually set foot. many other places he just looked out and said, i'm going to name it this or that or the other. but the virgin islands, and in particular the island of st. croix, is the place where he actually had resistance from the inhab contaminates who lived there -- inhabitants who lived there. we know that from his own log books, from people on the boat who fought, who recognized that the people who were there were putting up a resistance to these men coming in 1492. in 1733, on the island of st. john, we have recorded the first major slave insurrection in the western hemisphere. the individuals and people there were so incensed at being enslaved that they organized themselves, actually overthrew those who had enslaved them, and held the island for a year before the danes could organize with the english, the spaniards, with others to fight back and take back the land. i'm so grateful that in this last congress, this body, in a bipartisan way, were willing to support a recognition of that and there will be this year a plaque put up at rams head on the island of st. john, the site of where the organizers brought themselves together and made the determination that they would rather commit suicide than go back to slavery. ram's head is the location where they engaged in collective suicide by jumping off of the cliff rather than going back to slavery. in 1848 the virgin islands is also the place on the island of st. croix where individuals organized, worked together and overthrew completely slavery well before the emancipation proclamation was made here in the united states. it is one of only two places, the virgin islands and the island and the people of haiti, who were able to obtain their freedom through violent and organized overthrow. we're blessed as virgin islanders to celebrate virgin island's history, as well as the same month -- virgin islands history, as well as the same month of women's history, because the virgin islands isn't complete without women. i must acknowledge the record number of women, as wellals the records in -- as well as the record number of people of color currently serving in this congress. this record represents a 59% increase from the 96 women who served in the 112th congress. women in this body have come a long way. i'm thrilled to continue to break glass ceilings as well as we impact history. for decades women of all backgrounds have worked to break barriers in communities, workplaces, schools, universities. we often forget to give recognition to the lesser known women. the great shirley chisholm, who was the first black woman to serve in this body, famously said, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. i say, let's take it a step further. forget the seat, give women the whole table and watch what happens. as a black woman, i think about my own mother and all mothers who every day, even when it wasn't common to work, they sacrificed, occupied space where they were underrated, underappreciated and marginalized. without that history and those individuals, we would not be who we are today, which is why i'm proud and i'm honored to represent my home, my ancestral home, of the virgin islands. during this virgin islands history month and women's history month, i proudly recognize the indomitable spirit of women like mary thomas, one of the organizers of fire burn, ana, who was the woman who spoke to the governor, the danish governor at the time, and convinced him and talked with him about emancipation. birtha, one of our educators, erona peterson, senator ruby rouse, who was one of the first aide de comps of general eisenhower during the war, a virgin islander. edith born, lorraine barry, one of the great legislators on our island. early trailblazers who championed women's freedom, equality and power for virgin islanders. while the faces of power are growing and there's still work to be done, it's refreshing to look back, to gain inspiration and encouragement from virgin islanders who have gone before and these women faced deliberate, unconscious bias, and yet they prevailed. we should note the importance of representation for women in leadership, politics, law enforcement, as croix every sphere -- across every sphere is evident. in politics alone, evidence shows that more women in public decision making and public policy produce policies that benefit women, children, families in general. women are more inclined to work across the aisle with colleagues, to work in a bipartisan fashion, to negotiate. as a lawyer, i know that the best contracts, the best negotiations, everybody has to feel a little bit of pain for it to be the best. women are willing to do that. we know that loans given to women businesses exponentially support families and entire communities than loans given to men. we need women. let us all continue the great work, all of us. that includes men who are brothers, sons, fathers. we need you all to break the bias and advance the cause of women's rights in our communities, our government and our world. throughout the month of march, let us continue to celebrate heritage, history, as we look to our future. happy women and virgin islands history month. i want to rise and highlight a few influential women that have helped shape virgin islands' history during virgin islands history month. now, of course so often in the virgin islands, we talk about the men. and the men have done amazing things. the virgin islands has produced great actors and artists, like camille passaro, one of the founders of french impressionism. actors like kelsey grammer and lawrence hilton jacobs. we have tremendous athletes in our past, like horris clark, elrod hendrix and of course my own cousin, emwel plaskett, all having served in professional baseball. peter homeberg has done amazing things in sailing, as well as the jackson family, father and sons are tremendous boxers. of course everyone knows us for having had tim duncan, one of the greatest, the goat, nba player in alton adams, first naval band master. leon parks, lincoln center jazz. john lu krmp ien, another great artist. the men are great but let us talk about a few of the women in virgin islands' history. first one is eulah rivera and was born on the islands and during her lifetime played a tremendous role in the virgin islands. in her book "growing up in st. croix," she gives an account of her life that portrays the attitudes and culture, witnessing the transfer of the virgin islands, a change in ownership and complete culture, events to rumors of being the first woman to ride a bicycle on st. croix. her mother passed away during childbirth and raised in homes for children. ms. rivera dedicated more than 30 years to the education system in the virgin islands and taught at the diamond school among others. she was instrumental in helping the caribbean culture and virgin islands' culture and created the st. croix christmas festival. she was supervisor of the lutheran church sunday school and founder of the political party, a charter member of professional women's club and member of the frederick center, the virgin islands' league of women's voters. she was busy. she loved her home. in 1974, the elementary school was renamed after her. she is a beloved ancestor and i would like to recognize eileen even peterson and born on st. croix and is the first woman to serve as a judge in the united states virgin islands and few women jurists. i can recall judge peterson telling me about the fact that after she was nominated and confirmed in the virgin islands as a judge, the men would get her and did not have an office. she disnt have interm chambers in which to work and every day at lunch time, she would take the files from her courtroom and sit in her car and work on the cases going back to court and making decisions because there was no place else for her to work. that did not stop her from doing her job, executing justice and doing what was right. judge peterson was the first appointed judge of the municipal court, by then governor melvin evans in 1971 and became a practicing lawyer in 1967 in washington, d.c., and she returned home to the virgin islands to give that education, that mind so much that she had learned back to the people. she became an assistant attorney general under francisco canero. after 20 years on the bench, she resigned and is in retirement. i would be remiss if i didn't mention another judge, who is still with us, the honorable, denise francois. she continued at the university of san diego school of law, where she received her jury is doctorate and admitted to the virgin islands' bar and u.s. court of appeals. she joined as a partner on st. thomas where she worked for the people. 2013, appointed superior court judge and chaired the advisory committee on rules and aided in drafting the virgin islands rules of civil procedure and virgin islands rules of evidence. she is still playing a trail as a great injuryist and legal mind. i love libraries and i love books. and i would have to speak about a librarian and archivist, ms. enid bay for whom the bay is named. she p pioneered librarianship in the virgin islands, caribbean and internationally and developed her love of library work. as a graduate of the first high school in st. thomas. her interest and professional ambition led to several advanced degrees including hampton university and columbia. she helped held professional positions at the united nations' library, new york public library in their reference division and kming back home, she was appointed director of libraries and museums under governor alexander. she seconded to head the caribbean organizes library in puerto rico and has been an editor and archivist. so much work she has done to make sure the history, words of people, books are available to all. many people forget about the smallest island, water island is the smallest, but st. john, where there is so much work to be done and where people have worked so hard together. there was a woman who was born in 1908, myra keating smith. she has passed away and with the elders from 1994. she was a nurse and midwife and only provider of health care on the island of st. john for almost two decades. she was taught as a small child in homes, organizations of people on the island of st. john, bringing children together in parlors and kitchens to learn. her parents taught them themselves. at 14 they sent her on a boat to new york city and by train to be taught at tuskegee institute. then after working for some years, she came home in 1931. and she, by foot, boat or by horseback when there were no roads or trails, provided health care to the people of st. john. you know, our history is rich. there is so much that we all can learn from people who are so resilient, who are so willing to give of themselves, to go out to learn, to educate themselves and come back and give to the history, give to the future of the people of the virgin islands. i'm so grateful to be a part of that history, to be a virgin islander whose roots go back seven generations and it is my joy to come home on the weekends and run into people who are my cousins, my family, and more importantly, my friends. and in this month, during march, it's even more important to reach back to that history. this july will be our 175th year from emancipation from slavery. it's important that all virgin islanders understand the importance of working together. you know, when we tell the story to our children about our emancipation, one of the most amazing things is as the slaves were organizing, they really kept it to themselves what they had plan and july 3 to march to the fort and demand their freedom from the danish military as they reached the fort and the danish soldiers decided to put the cannons towards the crowd, they went and then to get the gunpowder to put in the cannons and realized that the gunpowder was all gone. the slaves over a series of months had quietly removed all of the gunpowder and replaced the barrels with mol as dances that takes people organizing and understanding that you can have no snitches to get something like that done and know what was most important was them working together. and so on that day as they reached in fredericksted and other slaves, the conch plus to give notice to the other slaves that everyone said from the other end of the island out east began marching all at once to try and demand their freedom. when the governor realized that these slaves organized in the manner that they had, he declared that all enslaved are now free in the danish west independentees. so the people of st. croix not only liberated themselves but liberated their brothers, sisters and those on the other islands, st. thomas john, the little keys, all of the places throughout. it is that resilience, that fortitude that i'm so grateful to have within my blood to be a part of my history. and that is now american history. that is a part of all of our history that we all celebrate. that's an example for all of us. that's not something to be shunned or to be ashamed of or for people to feel, you know, embarrassed about or sad, many people would say that that could be banned in other locations. that's my history. that's the history that now is part of american history. so i'm hopeful we can all take that in, that we can all see examples of our own lives whether we are caribbean, black, hispanic, latina, caulk casian, it is a history for us all. i'm grateful for that history as we continue to live it each and every day. to end, i want to also recognize virgin islanders who are doing amazing things today. who are in the arts. and we have virgin islanders who have been awarded the highest honors, ron thomas, cory alexander, kyle france is, each received recognition at the 75th annual grammy awards for their excellent work in the. mesiah worked with the reggae and his second album which garnered a grammy of the year. kyle thomas, songwriter received recognition for his song writing. and both cory alexander and kyle francis natives of st. fran chic who worked on "kingdom" which won best goss p pell performance. i would be remiss if i didn't lift up our sister janelle james who won the naacp award for best supporting actress in "abbott elementary." we might be a small place but we think big and live our lives big and do not restrict ourselves. in the words of the popular rock city song, whose authors are those individuals that i mentioned and received the dpramy awards, the world is ours scarface. no matter where i am, i am the eye all day. let's be v.i. strong and v.i. proud. happy virgin islands history month. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 9, 2023, the chair recognizes the gentleman from arkansas, mr. hill, for 30 minutes. mr. hill: well, mr. speaker, i thank you for the time. one year into russian's illegal invasion of ukraine, the ukranian valiant defense has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties for the russians. but the russians believe would be a victory in a matter of days or weeks has turned into now just over a year bloody slog. the russian bear has turned out to be a paper tiger on the fields of ukraine. the united states must remain committed as a partner with ukraine to achieve victory. victory, mr. speaker, or putin and his allied nations will attack the baltic states or take muldova or try to control the black sea. . . it's a stark choice of remaining in nato or becoming a putin puppet, were putin successful in ukraine. victory in ukraine, mr. speaker, or china will be green-lighted to a fully nuclear madman and north korea and attempt a blockade of taiwan. in order to achieve that victory, president biden must get the rest of the world even more engaged. in december, members of this body were briefed by the departments of state and treasury and i recently wrote secretary blinken and secretary yellen in follow-up regarding the funding strategy for supporting ukraine, human tarly, -- human tailor, in defense and in military means and in their monthly costs. i raised two principle points. first, in my view, congress does not have the full financial picture of the contributions being made by the united states, our allies and partners on behalf of ukraine. in a straightforward and simple manner available to all members. they don't paint a complete picture. as a new member of the house foreign affairs committee, i look forward to hearing from state and usaid and the defense department in the near future on what they've been doing to track our funding in ukraine and explain it in thorough detail to the congress. secondly, i raised with the two secretaries the successful 1990, 1991 partnership between secretary of state james baker and secretary of treasury nicholas brady in developing an active solicitation of major countries from around the world to fund the u.s. enforcement of the united nations security council resolution authorizing use of force to liberate kuwait from iraq's illegal invasion of their sovereign territory. the result was the united states received contributions from around the world of some $53 billion against an estimated total cost to eject saddam hussein from kuwait of $60 billion. now, while some of those contributions were in the form of in kind material support, more than 90% was paid in cash. the united states must be more strongly engaged with our allies to share a greater financial burden for that military, humanitarian and budget support for the government of ukraine. just a few days ago on february 20, japan pledged $5.5 billion in additional aid to ukraine. this is on top of the $1.3 billion in financial humanitarian assistance it had already pledged. this is a recent example of precisely what i believe the united states government should be achieving and achieving in a more aggressive and effective manner. the worldwide response in support of ukraine has been remarkable. but i believe significantly more can be done to help ukraine if additional countries provide more material and financial support in europe and beyond. the u.s. military has a unique role, an important role, as the lead nato partner in equipping, training and providing related military materials. that mission suits us more than any other country. however, as demonstrated in my example of kuwait, obtaining broad financial support from more sources -- for more sources is essential in my view to mountaining popular -- maintaining popular political support in europe and in the united states for victory in ukraine. this also demonstrates how people from around the globe benefit from a prompt success of preservation of ukraine's sovereignty. cost of goods, access to food, fuel and financing are all impeded by the russian federation's illegal action. that makes the case that all nations are hurt by russia's aggressions, all nations can support ukraine. president biden must craft an active and effective campaign to bring forward the financial and material resources from around the world to fully support victory in ukraine. mr. speaker, i rise today to highlight the practice of forced organ harvesting in china. i'm a proud co-sponsor of h.r. 1154, the stop forced organ harvesting act, introduced by my friend, the congressman from new jersey, chris smith. congressman smith is also chair of the foreign affairs subcommittee on global health, global human rights and international organizations. i'm proud to serve as his vice chair for that subcommittee. forced organ harvesting is a disgusting and appalling practice carried out against minority groups in china by the chinese communist party. they prey on the weegar people -- uyghur people. we should notable surprised with china's lack of medical ethics. the chair of the u.s. commission on international religious freedom and my recent state of the union guest has documented the forced blood sampling and organ screening of uyghur detainees in their re-education camps. what's disappointing is that despite years of evidence of this practice, the united states currently has no law on the books to address this issue. the stop foarlsed organ harvesting act will do just that by adding -- forced organ harvesting act will do just that by adding penalties to those who violate the national organ transplant act and it will sanction those that fund, sponsor or facilitate forced organ harvesting or human trafficking that leads to forced organ harvesting. this bill passed unanimously out of the house foreign affairs committee last week and i look forward to seeing a strong vote in the full house in the future. we'll pass it here and i expect the senate to pass this legislation and send it to president biden. it's long past time for the american government to address this challenge through legislation and put a stop to this inhumanity. i appreciate my friend, chairman smith, for his leadership in introducing this legislation. it's another sign to the american people of how depraisked the chinese -- depraved the chinese communist party is in their march to violate every norm of international society. mr. speaker, i rise today to commemorate national hostage and wrongful detainee day. i along with my democratic colleague congresswoman haley stevens reintroduced our legislation yesterday that establishes march 9 as the national hostage and wrongful detainee day. on march 9, 2007, robert levinson disappeared in iran. he never returned home. the commemoration of this national day brings attention to americans that are being unjustly held as wrongful detainees and hostages in a foreign land. since the levinson act was signed into law two years ago, we've heard from families and organizations that are dedicated to helping bring wrongful detainees and hostages home and how that law is working. we're learning more about how the levinson act is being used since it's become law. and it's time for the house foreign affairs committee to conduct oversight and see what potential changes should be made. i helped create in the last congress the congressional task force on american hostages and americans wrongly detained abroad because one of my constituents disappeared on a visit to syria. maj is still being held by the assad regime in syria. maj and his wonderful family lived for a time in my hometown of little rock. and every member of congress is dedicated to the more than 50 americans who right now are held against their will wrongfully in a country around the world. we all want to bring home maj and every other american that's being held wrongfully. i'm proud to be a part of this task force and work alongside my friend, congresswoman stevens. i thank all those who are involved in their daily awareness to bring wrongful detainees and hostages around the world home to their families in our great country. mr. speaker, i rise today to highlight the entrepreneurial creativity of ben bell and matt bell who recently founded orgami sake in hot springs, arkansas. although they're unrelated, these two bells share the same last name and the same passion for sake. the pair met in 2016 after ben returned to arkansas from a trip to japan where he became interested in the art of making sake. after living in that country for two years. after years of collaboration, ben and matt joined forces to begin brewing sake in arkansas which led to the opening of their business. arkansas' the largest grower of rice in the united states and the isabel farm has spent decades perfecting the proper rice to be used for sushi and, now, the proper rice that is needed for making high quality sake. additionally, the magnificent water from the famous hot springs national park has the perfect quality for sake brewing. ben and matt are taking advantage of these resources in arkansas to make sake even more popular and distribute it, homegrown in arkansas across the united states. i recently led a delegation to meet with leaders in japan where our members had the opportunity to present arkansas brewed sake to former prime minister suga and deputy cabinet secretary kahiro, along with key members of the japanese diet, we also entertained our great ambassador ron emanuel with his own taste of a thousand crane sake brewed in arkansas. i applaud ben and matt for their originality, their entrepreneurship and i commend them for leading in america in the brewing of sake. mr. speaker, i rise today to highlight the important partnership between the arkansas martin luther king commission and fox 16 and kart television. in 2017, following the horrible shootings at the power ultralounge night club in little rock, fox 16 and kark kicked off an important initiative to build grassroots support to reduce violence in central arkansas. they called it victory over violence. the goal of the campaign is to unite leaders and groups throughout our local communities to be a resource for reducing violent crime and changing lives through community improvements. in january, the arkansas martin luther king commission presented fox 16 anchors, donna terrell, and kevin kelly, with their 2023 drum major for community leadership award. the persistence and successful leadership of donna, kevin and all those involved at the arkansas m.l.k. commission, fox 16 and kark, their making an impact on improving the lives and safety in central arkansas. i'm grateful for their effort it's, their -- efforts, their persistent efforts over all these past years to keep that at the forefront of community activism, victory over violence is something that we need and i'm grateful for their leadership. mr. speaker, i rise today to recognize the 2022 miss arkansas winner, ebony mitchell. ebony was the 84th miss arkansas scholarship pageant winner where she was awarded $30,000 in scholarship funds provided by the ted and shanna boyle scocus foundation and $75,000 in other areas. last december she represented our great state at miss america in connecticut. becoming miss arkansas was a life-long dream for e ebony. her journey started when she won the miss arkansas princess pageant in 2007, which entered her into the diamond state princess mentorship program. she had five appearances at miss arkansas before finally winning that title last year. aside from her accomplishments, she graduated from the university of central arkansas with a bachelor's agree in business administration. she will continue to lead her social impact by leading a responsible digital youth initiative which seeks to keep children online safe. ebbony is a native of harrison, arkansas and leader in civil rights in her hometown. i congratulate ebbony and continue to watch her proudly represent our grit state of arkansas. i rise today to clay burn county to the 2nd district of arkansas. last year, the arkansas state legislature added clay burn county to the 2nd congressional district. it brings beautiful nature, economic development and many other recreational ideas and opportunities to my district. an active business and civic community, excellent health care and educational facilities and opportunities along with grer's ferry national fish hatchery, rot ari clubs, the sugar loaf mountain trail and fly fishing on the little red are capitals of what the county has now to offer. i look forward to representing them in washington at their u.s. capitol. mr. speaker, i rise today to congratulate my friend executive assistant to the medical director at the veterans' health care. debbie mmp eise. she is retiring after 40 years of service. debbie is an arkansas native and has exhibited kindness and consideration on a daily basis to co-workers, patients and visitors alike. she's a role model for everyone in public service because of the positive impact she had in her daily work at central arkansas v.a. the standard of care she has established will continue for generations to come in our v.a. hospital. debbie, thank you for your dedication and service. without your time and effort, many voices would have gone unheard. every day you were at work, you put others first. congratulations debbie and i wish you a very happy retirement. mr. speaker, i rise today in memory of arkansas supreme court chief justice jack holt junior who passed away on march 5, 2023. dpormer chief justice began his career in the united states air force where achieved the rank of colonel and worked as a deputy prosecutor, chief assistant attorney general and ultimately served as our chief justice of our supreme court for 10 years from 1985 to 1995. he will be remembered for his significant contributions to the modern just 2eus system that exists in arkansas including our juvenile courts. he set up the essential parts of our court systems. his advancement of the education requirement for attorneys and creation of more staff positions to help circuit court judges has greatly improved the effectiveness of justice in my state. i thank former chief justice holt for his years of service and contributions. his legacy lives on. my prayers and comfort are with his wife jane, their family and their friends. mr. speaker, i rise today to congratulate rescue road for rescuing 8,000 dogs. it is a mission to place high kill dogs in shelters to find permanent homes. the organization works with their team of volunteers and foster families throughout our state of arkansas. in january, they placed their 8,th dog in a home. i thank all the volunteers with rescue road for their hard work and dedication for dogs finding forever homes. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's anonessed policy of january 9, 2023, the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. grothman for 30 minutes. mr. grothman: i would like to discuss some issues. none of them got the attention they deserved. first issue to talk about is the size of our federal debt. i know ever since i was a child people talk about deficit sphending and the amount of the federal debt that someday that children and grandchildren will have to pay off. it is important to look, though, things are really different. the only time the federal debt got to the total gross national product in this country which is to compare data, it hit 100% at the end of world war ii. that is not surprising. the entire economy was devoted to munitions. a huge percent of our population was in the armed services and we had 100%. however, unlike now, when the war ended, it was easy to reduce federal spending. hundreds of thousands of troops were laid off and sent back to work in the private sector. we stopped building ships, planes and tanks we needed during the war. and as a result over the next 30 years, the amount of the federal debt dropped from 100% g.d.p. down to around 30% and bounced back and forth around that level, maybe 40% all the way to about 1995. that was too big and people commented at the time, but the debt was 30% to 40% of g.d.p. then beginning around 1910 things began to shoot up. we are now within a couple of years where we were at the end of world war ii. there are no tank or ship factories to shut down. we can't layoff troops. most of our day is spent attending meetings in our offices with various groups asking for spending increases they say they absolutely need. this time we are really in a crisis. not only are we in a situation in which we are approaching 100% -- our debt equal to hirp of g.d.p. but because interest rates are going up and. the amount we are paying is interest is skyrocketing. we cannot reduce the interest, right? if we have interest on our debt which we anticipate going up in the next year $640 billion to $740 billion a year, that's $100 billion spending increase that we have no control over. as the debt continues to go up and as the federal reserve feels and i was in a committee hearing both the republican and democrat witnesses felt what was going on as the federal reserve continues to raise interest rates, the amount of interest that we have to pay every year goes up. we have $100 billion increase in the difference between what we are going to pay in interest 2023, 2024, before we look at anything else. the fact that this budget proposal contains more spending is by itself deeply concerning. it shows that the basic numbers have not gotten through the head of the biden administration or maybe they feel by the time we finally hit the wall, the value of the dollar, he will be off at a retirement home and other people will have to deal with it. the american public should know for the first time since world war ii, we are approaching having the total debt 100%. the next thing to look at, if we must spend more where does president biden feel it should be spent. one place that we have a reduction here is homeland security. the biggest crisis we have in this country is people streaming across our southern border, but we can find over 10% increase for the department ofcommerce. and find a 10% increase on the department of interior. 11% increase on the department of labor. 19% increase on environmental protection agency. but when it comes down to the one thing that you turn on the tv every night and say we have to spend more money there, department ofhomeland security, 1% reduction. i mean this is where our president is. we are going to have increased spending across the board, some of which is necessary, but the one place we can't have an increase, homeland security. that and transportation. but i take that to be we just had the huge infrastructure bill, therefore we don't need an increase. and you dig deeper into this budget with any agency you look at, you have more money for bureaucrats devoted to dividing america by race. we have to do more to favor this race, this race, this gender or that gender. that is so offensive. i'm going to address it in a few minutes, but the time we are hitting the highest amount of debt to g.d.p. he is hiring bureaucrats whose jobs depends telling america we have a racist problem and identify people by race, big problem. so i encourage the american public to pay attention to the budget. pay attention to the fact that we are hitting in our lifetimes the greatest debt ever, and pay attention that before we argue and quibble about how much the department of education should go up or down or spend more or less on defense, we are going to have a $100 billion increase in the amount of interest we pay next year. the next area to look and i mentioned that the bide administration actually feels we can reduce the amount we are spending on homeland security is i wish the press would see what is happening with the children at our southern border. there was in retrospect a relatively small number of children who had to be separated from their parents who had broken the law and by court order those children were returned to their parents in 15 or 30 days. a relatively small number. now you look and it varies from month to month and eight to 10,000 unaccompanied children enter this country. where are all these people who a few years ago were alarmed that some young people would spend 2 weeks without their parents and now 8,000 to 10,000 kids a month entering america. we don't spin them back around and go back to your parents. instead we look at an address that is attached to their shirt that says 123 elm street, portland, oregon and the border control or the agencies like catholic social services finds some way to deliver that child. does anybody feel that's outlandish? i know the individual border agencies think how horrible that is. we do know that sometimes when children come with people who they believe are parents, the poredder patrol gets suspicious and does d.n.a. tests and not unusual to find that parents try to bring children and say they are their children and do a test and find out they are not. and what becomes of these children who their parents send across the southern border. some of them have to go work. "new york times" had an interesting article, when parents send their children to work, they are supposed to send money back to central america, to south america. . ., we know people, the drug gangs who are take pg advantage of the opened -- taking advantage of the open border policy by president biden. the drug kings are demanding payment, perhaps payment coming back from america. so is it right that a young child without their parents get shipped somewhere in america, have to work in some factory, and some of the money is sent to the drug cartels, other money is sent back home to the parents? is that good, is that what america wants to encourage? america's responsible for allowing this system to continue. and what are the -- do the kids do? at least "the new york times" says they work in factories, how many are working, for example, in the sex trade? who knows. but this is something the press ought to be paying more attention to. i intend to have a hearing on this topic sometime within the next six weeks. and hopefully we can find out a little bit more what happens to these individual kids. obviously if the people, including the media, who is so alarmed that kids of parents who had broken the law had to spend a couple weeks apart from their parents, if this media would wake up a little bit, they would find a lot more kids are being permanently separated from their parents, or at least separated from years and years -- for years and years at the border. if the press would wake up, they would be able to apply the pressure that we need to get these children back to their parents. i'll give another thing along with keeping families together. and i know that there are devotees of black lives matter who don't believe in the traditional family, they'd rather have families without a dad at home. but i still believe that's best. what happens when a child shows up at the southern border with only one parent? we know in the united states, in our court system, if the parents are separated, frequently there are court orders, you know, both mom and dad have to stay relatively close to the child. we don't let one parent grab the child without the other parent signing off and run to a different part of the country. nevertheless, the border patrol is worried and they're on the ground, they're worried when they see children show up with one parent and not the other parent. has anybody adjudicated this? has any social workers determined this is ok? or is it just one parent who doesn't care about the other parent bringing their children here? the united states apparently takes no interest as families are being torn apart. again, this is something that my subcommittee will look on, look at, but it shouldn't take that long. it should be the comatose american press corps who right now is paying attention and saying, where is the legal documentation that allows you to show up with your parents and the other parent be gone? this desire to get rid of the nuclear family or deprive children from south of the border with their mom or dad is offensive. and the united states is part of it. so i hope that the biden administration does something about it and hope when we ever do get around to an immigration bill, or that a new president gets in there, that the policy is such, we are not going to take one child unless we know where both parents are. now, the third issue is an issue that is so dear to president biden's administration. when he was sworn in as president, i actually attended his inaugural speech, being the bipartisan guy i am. president biden addressed racism four times and white supremacy once. i think it's unusual when we obsess over racism in this country. we're obviously about the least racist country that ever existed, right? people come here from all around the world. people back in the eastern hemisphere fight tribe against tribe in africa, they fight country against country in europe. different states or different religions fight and kill each other in india. but they all come here to america and they get along just fine. nevertheless, joe biden is obsessed with the idea that we have a horrible racist country and we have to weigh in and perhaps give preferences to people one way or the other. so we get the drumbeat of racism, racism, racism. we heard it again in his state of the union speech, right? in his state of the union speech, joe biden couldn't resist but go after the police of this country, say that black parents have to tell their children to look out on the horrible police, even though studies that are now years old show that when adjusted for criminal behavior, adjusted for arrests, there is no greater danger of black people in the population as a whole in confrontation with police. but joe biden, i can home assume because he wants to tear apart america, keeps getting up on the platform, we've got this racist problem, we got to look out for the police. not true. but what is the result of this mindset that we have this horrible racial problem and we have to do something about it? well, because joe biden obviously wants this narrative to continue, the first thing he wants to do is hire a bunch of bureaucrats, more certainly in his proposed budget, hire bureaucrats throughout the federal agencies to deal with the supposed racial problem and dive in looking for the people you hire, the people you deal with, let's look at it through the racial prism. as it so happens, i think this should be more publicized, america's had a policy of affirmative action since 1965 in this country. and that's when president lintden johnson -- lyndon johnson, i think in part in response to the jim crow era, which had just ended in the south, began a policy of affirmative action and today every american business with at least 100 employees or any business with at least 50 employees that does 50,000 -- $50,000 worth of contracting with the government is affected by t the affirmative action ordr that was gun by lyndon johnson -- begun by lyndon johnson over 50 years ago. obviously the purpose of the affirmative action is to put the thumb on the scale when a company does hiring, when they do promoting, when they do firing. and the stated purpose of this massive bureaucracy is to give what was a practical matter of preferences to americans who basically descend from anywhere around the world other than northern africa and europe. recently president biden gave notice that he wants at least people to fill out forms differently. right now you're considered, i guess, what we'll refer to as white if you're from northern africa but people wants to take people from egypt, syria, whatever, and give them a new place on the form. i would assume, i'm not sure, but i would assume that means more affirmative action for people in that part of the world as well. in so far as companies change their policies to make these forms come up better or more what they like, it means that you are giving preferences to one group over another group. even more absurdly, frequently the group you're giving preferences to are immigrants who weren't even here in the united states. i wish we would have hearings on this topic and i wish the press would delve into the topic and ask, why if you move here from wherever, peru, pakistan, philippines, wherever, why in the world should you be treated differently or should a company feel that they have to go out of their way to give preferences to these groups when they have never been subject to any discrimination in this country at all? much less slavery. why when it comes to african-americans, assuming that we should do this sort of thing, and i'm not sure it's right at all, but if we're going to have to do this sort of thing, why if somebody moves here from jamaica or bahamas or nigeria or somewhere, comes here for a better life in america, does when a company hiresser ow when a -- hires you or when an american governmental entity hires you, why do these diversity people feel you should be given preference over people who are already here? does anybody think that's a little bit odd? i think that's something we particularly ought to look into because president biden wants to get so many more people here, including illegally. but as a practical matter right now, there are a lot of big businesses who feel that it will help them in the eyes of the government if they hire people who just immigrated here. maybe people who just immigrated here illegally as opposed to some of the native born. i'll give an he can dote i repeated -- anecdote i repeated in committee the other day. i talked to a gentleman whose son worked for a major american cabinet department. and he was glad with his job, he went to school for the job he got. after eight or nine years, he wondered why he wasn't moving up, why he wasn't promoted? he was doing a good job. well, he was told, you're a white guy who is not a veteran. of course we give preferences to veterans too. now is that right? and if it's right, if people feel from here on out that's the way it's going to be in the united states, shouldn't the agencies that behave this way at least be required to post something saying that if you are going to be held back because you're not a veteran, if you're going to be held back by your race that you should look out before you accept this job? i would think at a minimum we should at least alert the public. it's kind of unusual that we have this problem. but i do feel that some committee or the press if they want to educate the public what's going on ought to delve into this issue a little bit more. and these are questions that i think the press ought to ask. when we embark on this affirmative action policy in which we're picking people by background, does this effect the quality of life in america? ok, if when we determine admissions to medical schools or admissions to schools of engineering or something like pilots, when the biden administration says we have to run all these through the bean counters, do we wind up with perhaps some people who are not as qualified? does that affect the quality of life in america? what is a minority entitled to a preference? is it somebody who is one-half from a different country? is it one-quarter? is it one-eighth? right now you self-identify. is that right? elizabeth warren was something like 1/64th or 1/128th native american, claimed that to be a native american. is that right? how about 1/4? is that right? 1/2? 1/8? i'm not sure. is it right that if you move here directly from spain, you're european, if your ancestors came from spain and spent a few generations in mexico, you're somebody in need of protection? does that make any sense? i think the press ought to ask that question. again, in this country, i believe affirmative action was, we were led to believe, was a certain extent to making up for jim crow or even slavery. but if you're somebody who comes here of african descent from nye the gentlelady's time has expired or jamaica, you didn't experience jim crow or slavery. is it right ha preference -- that preferences be given to groups like this? a lot of times people say it's about diversity. well, there is such a thing as diversity in background and maybe we learn different things with different backgrounds. but this is all frequently race-related. if i grow up next to somebody who is 1/4 mexican and we've had the exact same experiences and are best friends and played together on the football team and graduated together from high school, is there really diversity in hiring one of us instead of the other of us or letting one of us in school compared to the other school? that's ridiculous. but that's what the law is currently right now. and of course i think there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in keeping this going. there are people who want to, i think, destroy america by trying to set people from one area up against another area. there are people who want to protect their jobs. these can be very well-paying jobs. monitoring this diversity stuff from company to company. and now in order to protect their jobs, these programs have to continue to keep on going. they're well paid jobs and there are consultants who make well under the six figures whose jobs depend upon this diversity stuff. so i hope the press looks into that, sees how much people are making. the diversity program can favor women as well. right now in america single women under 30 actually make more than single men under 30. so do we need all this paperwork and experts to delve into things to protect the women? i don't know. i'll say this, i'll give a little anecdote, who brought this to my attention, i know a woman, she's retired now but she was resume resources person -- human resources person for a manufacturing firm that did business with the government. they had over 100 employees. she searched me out. one the company she was with wanted to a hire new engineer and hired an independent firm to administer their affirmative action program because they didn't want to get in trouble with the federal government. they were told, you want the to go from hiring five engineers to six engineers. right now, you better be a woman. doesn't have to be a woman but you have to prove that you did to try to hire a woman. she didn't like that and thought that was wrong. four members of what was classified as management and were told by the experts who were there, you better look for a minority for that fifth management position. doesn't have to be a minority but if the federal government audits you, you could get in trouble. so you have to prove that you did to try to hire a minority. i was back home a few weeks ago. a woman brought this up, she worked for a financial institution and been going on for months and couldn't hire anybody because all the applicants were white men. interesting. is that right? well, in any event, these are three topics that i don't feel the press has paid enough attention to, but i hope they do a better job in the future of alerting the american people that we are approaching 100% in our debt. and we aren't going to lay off or shutdown factories. it is going to be much more difficult this time. i hope the american public also decides to weigh in when we do have an increase in spending is it right, two agencies -- three agencies on this summary, of all the agencies we have, homeland security in charge of the border is actually getting a cut. does the american public think that is overstaffed and bloated? i'm not sure. i hope the american public and the press corps which determines our agenda pays attention to all the unaccompanied minors streaming across the southern border without parents, maybe never to see their parents again. who knows what people are doing with them. human trafficking. johnny shows up with a note on his shirt deliver me to 123 elm street, portland oregon. yes, sir. i hope the american public is concerned about that. and finally in the days of joe biden when he is trying to hire so many bureaucrats to a administer affirmative action programs. who benefits? does it tacet the overall quality of work in some areas in america. i know the supreme court is having that discussion. and affects hiring both in the private and subject sector. and it affects government contracting as well. three topics that the press should pay attention to. we are going to ask the chair whether he has -- yield back to the chair. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the speaker's room washington, d.c., march 10, 2023, i here by designate the period from monday march 13, 2023 through tuesday march 21, 2023 as a district work period under section 3-z of house resolution 5. signed sincerely, kevin mccarthy, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a joint resolution. the clerk: house joint resolution 26, joint resolution disapproving the action of the district of columbia and approving the revised criminal code act of 2022. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin seek recognition? mr. grothman: i move to adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands adjourned until 4:00 p.m. on tuesday, march 14, employers added 311,000 jobs in february. the dow jones estimate of

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