the first black player in the national hockey league. and also to world war ii veterans who served in the ghost army which staged more than 20 battlefield deceptions in europe using inflatable tanks, fake radio transmissions and other deceptive measures to deceive nazi forces. the speaker: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by chaplain kibben. chaplain kibben: would you pray with me. god, our redeemer, preserve you are e. and friend. hear our prayers this day as we seek to live our lives in obedience to you. for you have not set us apart from this world. but have placed us into our communities, then sent us into positions of authority so that we would be salt to the earth. to preserve and protect the ideals on which this country was founded. to enhance and uphold the virtues by which this government was formed. to live our lives according to your divine word. may we not take this lightly, this extraordinary opportunity you have given us or allow our words or actions to become corrosive or damaging in the exercise of our influence. rather, may our faithfulness to your word serve the purpose of enhancing the lives of those around us and the purposes for which you have sent us. grant us, then, together a peaceful relationship that the salt that we are and the haloed responsibilities we -- hallowed responsibilities we share together would serve to glorify you in the gift of your name we pray, amen. the speaker: thank you. pursuant to section 11-a of house resolution 188, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the pledge of allegiance will be bead by the gentleman from south carolina, mr. wilson. mr. wilson: 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: the chair will entertain up to 15 requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? mr. higgins: unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. mr. higgins: madam speaker, the bipartisan infrastructure investment and jobs law will invest more than $14 billion this year alone in the nation's ports and waterways. in my community, this will provide $10 million to the times beach nature preserve on buffalo's outer harbor to preserve and improve the natural habitats and parkland. once a dumping ground for contaminated buffalo river sludge today the beach is a vibrant 55 acre wildlife and destination for visitors. this funding will support work by the united states army corps, buffalo district, to fortify the break wall times beach to help restore public access that was lost in storm damage two years ago. and to reduce the influence of that kind of damage from happening in the future. this funding bill done previous federal great lakes and infrastructure investments transforming buffalo's waterfront and revitalizing the western new york community. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? >> 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 gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. high school athletics play an important role in the lives of so many young people in the communities that they live in. mr. cline: which is why i have a policy of speaking from the floor to congratulate my district's state championship teams. today i'm here to honor the river head high school football team which won the vhsl class 1 state title last month. not only did they best their opponent by a 45-14 margin, but it marked the team's sixth consecutive state championship. the only football program in vhsl history to accomplish such a feat f that weren't monumental enough, it was the 50th straight win, the longest active winning streak in our nation. for the past 26 years this team has been led by the head coach who has announced he will be retiring at the end of the school year. coach castro's remarkable coaching career comes to an end with an overall record of 59 losses and 261 wins, including nine state championships. madam speaker, it's a pleasure to recognize this talented football team and the remarkable coach. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition. >> request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. last year democrats passed american rescue plan that provided funding to schools so they could reopen funding to cities and states so that first responders, municipal employees, and county employees didn't get laid off, and got stimulus checks to the american people as a result we are able to have over six million jobs created since january 20 and lowest unemployment rate now in nearly 50 years. mr. lieu: however, with the opening of our economies across the world, inflation has happened, including in the united states, and that's why i'm so pleased that the biden administration has announced $14 billion to go to 500 army corps of engineer projects, including at ports, to help with supply chain issues. by making sure we could move goods faster and easier and through supply chain issues, we will reduce the cost of goods. that's because the democrats also passed the infrastructure law. democrats have delivered for the people. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition. mr. wilson: madam speaker, i ask permission 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. wilson: thank you, madam speaker. in a political environment where even democrats have cited the biden agenda as fiscal insanity, it's reassuring the senate may be returning with the democrat "washington post" last tuesday and thursday being remarkably sane. on tuesday, the lead editorial correctly reviewed, quote, president biden is facing mounting criticism for inflation's rise to its highest level since 1982. unfortunately, the white house's latest response is to blame greedy businesses. comments across the political spectrum are rightfully calling out the white house for this foolishness, end of quote. on thursday, front page headlines were shocking. inflation for 2021 highest in 40 years. trend expected to last for months. prices become potent political threat to biden. the democrat elite think they are smarter than everyone and think democrat voters and media are ignorant to think trillions of dollars cost zero dollars. god bless our troops who protected america for 20 years as the global terrorism continues moving the afghanistan safe haven to america as sadly we saw with the suicide bomber who attacked the synagogue in texas on saturday. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition. >> i rise today to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized. >> thank you. i rise today to honor the life and service of wane county deputy sheriff sean riley. mrs. miller: our communities in illinois and across the nation continue to mourn the loss of our fallen hero. deputy riley was called home to be with the lord on december 29, 2021. he was on duty responding to a -- assist a motorist when he was shot and killed. may god continue to comfort this family as they grieve this awful lossment wayne county sheriff odie said the only thing sean cared about more than being a deputy was his family. please join me in prayer for the family of deputy sean riley, the wayne county sheriff's department, and our community in illinois. blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of god. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition. >> madam speaker, i rise 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. >> thank you, madam speaker. today i rise to stand in solidarity with the many americans, including my own constituents from texas' third congressional district, who are here in our nation's capital to march for the right to life. as a father of three wonderful daughters, i know how precious every stage of life is. and i believe it should be protected at every stage. every year i am awed by the outpouring of love and passion by so many texans as they show by traveling to washington and voicing their support for sanctity of life. mr. taylor: even more, travel to our state capitol in austin to advance the cause in our local communities. your engagement is humbling and it gives me faith that we could become the prolife generation. i urge my colleagues to join me in recognizing the pro-life and faith here's here in our nation's capital and join in fighting to protect innocent human life. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from -- the gentlelady from georgia seek recognition. >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized. for one minute. >> i am very excited to announce house resolution 872, which has bipartisanship, the entire georgia delegation has signed on congratulating the university of georgia bulldogs football team for winning the 2022 national collegial athletic association college football playoff national championship. mrs. greene: go, dogs. we are excited and i'm honored to have everyone's signature on this house resolution honoring the university of georgia and their great championship this year in 2022. and coach kirby smart for leading the team to victory this year. we just want to continue to share our excitement in georgia. congratulating the university of georgia. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i rise to ask for consent for one minute speech. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, concerned parents have a god given right to make decision force their child's best interest. mr. la mall if a: not the federal government, biden administration, or teachers unions. education second included with private parties to get the f.b.i. to investigate concerned parents and worked with the national school board association to brand concern involved as domestic terrorists. in the letter which the second so listilitied from the national school board association, he suggested using the patriot act in that the f.b.i. should begin investigating concerned parents at school board meetings. the letter had nothing to do with curriculum. the topic was how to vilify and target parents that disagreed with the narrative. secretary cardona has repeatedly denied involvement in the letter but recently released documents have exposed the truth. these actions show a clear pattern that puts politics over the interests of the parents and especially their children and education. parents are right to be concerned about their kids being taught radical ideologies or exposed to inappropriate materials. every parent in the nation regardless of ideology should be alarmed that the federal government is trying to strip away their rights and use these ut r underhanded methods to try to silence them. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition. >> madam speaker, i ask to speak to the house for one minute, revise and extend high remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. bilirakis: thank you, madam speaker. tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of one party radical rule in d.c. with democrats at the helm, americans have faced one crisis after another, unfortunately. we have the highest inflation in 41 years. supply chain disruptions, work force shortages, and critical industries, spikes in energy costs, record numbers of people on drugs, illegally entering our southern border. a surge in crime, national security threats, a series of foreign relation disasters, in my opinion, a mismanagement pandemic, and countless examples of government intrusion into all aspects of our lives. instead of addressing these problems, democrats have doubled down on failed policies, have engaged in out-of-control spending, and are trying to control every aspect of american lives. this is not the way forward. . is your family better off than you were a year ago. 70% of the respond especially were. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio seek recognition? mr. ryan: i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. ryan: payment in lieu of taxes are federal payments to local governments to help offset losses in property taxes due to the presence of a nontaxable federal land within their boundaries. through my role on the energy and commerce subcommittee, i have gotten to know the good people of pike county. ohio, where the department ofenergy owns 37700 acres of land where a uranium plant. pike county has one of the highest cancer rates in the state of ohio and their payment is a paltry $37,000 a year. they enriched the uranium and live in southern ohio and corporations have gone in and taken the profits out and now we need the help of this community gets the kind of payment they need for all the radiation and the sacrifices they have made, it is long past time that the federal government increase the payment for pike county, ohio. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: i rise today to recognize a chamber citizen of the year, dr. david wagner. he owns and operates the wagner family eye care. he is a graduate of gannon university and pennsylvania college of optometry and he is an active citizen in the county and giving back in the area and around the world. he serves on the board for the oil city rotary club and in addition to being involved in his church second presbyterian. and he mentors young adults in the area. dr. wagner participates in through god's eyes and dumz to provide eye care to people throughout the world. thank you for your continued dedication to those of us in the county and around the world. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition? ms. foxx: i request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. foxx: for a year, the biden administration has struck out on every jobs report. if this were a baseball game, this administration would have been benched long ago. congress predicted that 450,000 new jobs would be added in the month of december but what was the result? a dismal 1999,000 jobs added. the worst jobs report. with these kinds of numbers, america's economy and work force will never recover. no matter how this administration spins these failures, one thing is abundantly clear, you cannot sling this and then claim you hit a home run. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: pursuan t to clause 8 ever rule 20, the chair will postponefufort proceedings one the yeas and nays are ordered the house will resume proceedings on postponed questions at a later time. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment to home run 1192. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: an act to impose requirements for payment compensation to professional persons employed involuntary cases in the puerto rico insight and management act. pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from pennsylvania, ms. dean and the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. fitzgerald, each will control 20 minutes. ms. dean: i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to include extraneous material on the bill under consideration. the speaker pro tempore: without objection ms. dean: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. dean: home run 1191 the puerto rico prrada is commonsense legislation that would promote transparency and integrity with respect to the ongoing financial responsibility in puerto rico. this is the first time tay the house will vote on this. but the third time will be the charm. the speaker pro tempore: congres s passed the oversight management and economic stability act in 2016. that legislation established the oversight and management board over puerto rico's laws and regulations and obtain professionals to assist the board. although largely patterned on chapter 11, it did not incorporate all the facets of chapter 11. this senator inhofe: cleudz the requirements regarding potential conflicts of interests of professional persons seeking to be retained in a bankruptcy case. this bill would close that loophole by conditioning the compensation of professional persons under certain disclosures similarly to those required under the bankruptcy code. the bill would require the united states trustee to review disclosures and is submit comments in response to the court and authorizes the trustee to object to compensation requested by a professional. home run 1192 would allow courts to denny compensation for reimbursement of expenses if the professional person did not comply with the disclosure requirement and was not a disinterested person or held an interest adverse to the bankruptcy case. common sense. the house passed home run 1192 last february and the senate passed the amended version last september. and it strengthens the incentives for good faith compliance and other operations of the act. puerto rico's restructuring is growing to a close which makes passage of this legislation urgent. i thank representative velazquez for her leadership in championing this bill and her dedication to ensure that the people of puerto rico receive fair, efficient and transparent restructuring processes they deserve. i urge my colleagues to support this bill, which was passed out of the house last year and the year before by unanimous vote and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania reserves. the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. fitzgerald: i rise in support of the senate amendment to home run 1192. in 2016, puerto rico was experiencing severe financial pressure from significant debt and related obligations. in response, congress enacted the puerto rico oversight management and economic stability act of 2016. that 2016 law created a bankruptcy process for puerto rico. like existing bankruptcy law in 2016, the law peltered certain professionals working on puerto rico's bankruptcy like lawyers and accountants to apply to get paid for their services pending judicial approval. but the 2016 law lacked certain disclosure requirements that would typically apply to restructuring professionals in other bankruptcy cases. the gap in the 2016 law created the potential for conflicts of interests for professionals involved in puerto rico's bankruptcy. this bill fills the gap by mandating the necessary disclosure requirement. the bill establishes a process for overseeing and policing disclosures that bankruptcy professionals make. home run 1192 passed the house unanimously in february of 2021. in december, the senate passed home run 1192 with a faw minor amendments to improve the bill's administrative abilities. the bill enhanced significant efforts to comply with the new disclosure requirements. home run 1192 will serve important goals and interests including creditors and taxpayers' interests including puerto rico itself. i encourage my colleagues to support this bill and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin reserves. the chair recognizees the gentlewoman from pennsylvania. ms. dean: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin. mr. fitzgerald: i yield five minutes to the the gentlewoman from from puerto rico. missgonzalez-: colon i rise in support of the approval in the house of the senate amendments to home run 11 # 2. i joined representative velazquez to promote this commonsense bill to ensure the process serves puerto rico's interests. this week, the plan was approved by the federal court. so this is perfect timing to approve this bill today. it is nice to see this has passage in both chambers. the intent of this legislation demanded change and this bill will require any person or firm hired in the legal, financial or technical staff as consultants in the court cases for restructuring of puerto rico's the debt to have all connections with debtors or other interested parties before being compensated. our intention is not to exclude people with experience in puerto rico's financial transactions in being resources in the restructuring process but it is essential that their connection to those sections be known. conflicts of interests or the appearance can be best avoided if there is accountability and transparency. anyone working to inform the board's decision or representing it before the court needs to be committed to defending the interests of the people of puerto rico first in accord answer with the law and justice. lack of transparency creates a lack of trust. and this bill will work towards avoiding that by bhaiking these disclosures a legal mandate rather than the board own discretion. and until that happens, this instrument must be accountable and transparent. i ask my colleagues to support the passage of senate amendments to home run 1192 and i thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin reserves. mr. fitzgerald: we have no further speakers and we would be prepared to close. . will defer to the gentleman. mr. fitzgerald: i would reiterate there is a lot of support in the chamber and i rise in supporter it as well. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlewoman from pennsylvania. ms. dean: mr. speaker, in closing, h.r. 1192 closes a loophole under current law by establishing disclosure requirements regarding actual or potential conflicts of interest into the bankruptcy process under promesa. in doing so, this legislation promotes transparency and accountability in the puerto rico restructuring process. i thank my colleague, representative velazquez from new york, the author of the bill, for her leadership on this issue. i strongly urge my colleagues to support this commonsense measure. mr. speaker, with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment to h.r. 1192. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to. without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, morph the house suspend the rules and pass the bill s.1404, the ghost army congressional gold medal act, sponsored by senator markey. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 1404, an act to award congressional gold medal to the 23rd headquarter special troops and the 3133rd single service company, properly known as the ghost army, in recognition of their unique and highly distinguished service in conducting operations in europe during world war ii. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from pennsylvania, ms. dean, and the gentleman from kentucky, mr. barr, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from pennsylvania. ms. dean: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation, and to insert extraneous material thereon. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. dean: i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, i rise today in strong support of senate bill 1404, the ghost army congressional gold medal act. i want to thank the gentleman from massachusetts, senator markey, and the gentlewoman from new hampshire, congresswoman kuster, for their work on this bill which honors the resourcefulness, imagination, and artisry of the men of the 23rd headquarters special troops and the 3133rd signal company in conducting deception operations in europe during world war ii. this 1100-man unit known collectively as the ghost army, was made up of individuals recruited from creative fields, including art schools, theater, and communications companies, advertising agencies. their mission was to draw upon their creative and artistic talents to lure the german army away from the alleyed combat units through a series of tactical deception operations meant to confuse, deceive, and mislead. following the d-day landing in france, the ghost army undertook a traveling road show, utilizing fake radio transmillingses, inflatable tanks, and theatrical sound and spheric effects to misdirect german units away from actual allied unit locations, and toward larger imaginary ones. the ghost army were so effective that a later army analysis of their performance found that, quote, rarely if ever has there been a group of such few men which had so great an influence on the outcome of a major military campaign, unquote. yet dough spite the overwhelming success of the citizen shoulders of the ghost army, their contributions remain classified for over 40 years. and their bravery and ingenuity was never formally recognized. this bill honors their unique contributions to the war effort by directing the mint to strike a gold medal in honor of the ghost army, the gold medal shall be given to the smithsonian institution where it will be available for display and serve as recognition of the incredible service of the men of the ghost army during world war ii. i thank mr. markey and ms. kuster for their work on this bill. i urge members to vote yes. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from kentucky virginia tech. mr. barr: -- kentucky is recognized. mr. barr: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise in support of s.14 0e 4, the ghost army congressional gold medal act. the senate version of h.r. 707, which the house passed in may of 2021. the ghost army comprised of the 23rd headquarters special troops is renowned for creating large-scale deception operations capable of pulling actionis forces away from the actual movements of the allied forces. during the early phases of world war ii, the 23rd division mastered their skill of deception by setting unit sphere and collecting materials for their new special effects tactics. knowing that the enemy ground agents looked for vehicle bumper markings, allied shoulder patches and well-defined checkpoints, the 23rd collected shoulder patches for phony major generals. created realistic init florida stateable vehicles and artillery, and recorded the sounds of heavy machinery movements to sell their deception. they built their own modern day trojan horse down to the last detail. the ghost army unlike many other units was comprised of civilian soldiers with a proclivity for art, architecture, acting, set design, and engineering. as jack massy, recruited into the ghost army at age 18 remembered, we were told we were going to be using inflatable equipment to try and fool the germans into thinking that we were a real army when in effect, i suppose, a rubber army. anyone who has watched history channel world war ii documentary has undoubtedly seen the ghost army in action. . this is a test tay metropolitan to the bravery during world war ii. the 23rd did not limit their deception to the battlefield. ghosters were dispatched to french cafes to order omelets and talk loose among the spies. the 23rd would go to great lengths to cause chaos and confusion. recognizing these true american heroes hits close to home. as the 77th ghost army veteran originated from the great state of kentucky. they have saved thus of lives during world war ii. their service should be recognized with a congressional gold medal. i urge my colleagues to support this bill. i thank ms. kuster and i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: i yield 4:30 to the the gentlewoman from new hampshire. ms. kuster: i rise today to recognize a group of veterans who have gone unrecognized for far too long. in world war ii known as ghost army used combat deception to literally fool the nazis. their mission was to divert enemy forces away from the combat units. this required creativity and a special kind of courage. whereas a typical american unit had tanks made of steel. the ghost army built tanks made of rubber and wood using inflatable equipment, the ghost army made it appear as if there were tens of thousands of combat troops when there were really none. if the germans discovered this ruse, the ghost army would have been i nile ated. throughout the war, the ghost arm took this risk and using their artistic talents played a decisive role in allied combat operations. as mr. barr noted, an army analysis that has there ever been a group of such great men who had such great influence on a may scror military campaign. and that was the campaign that turned the tide of world war ii. to this day, combat deception units learned about the tactics used by the ghost army. in this sense, the brave actions of the ghost army still are keeping americans safe to this day. the ghost army was so effective that the deceptions were classified. the great men of the ghost army were never recognized for their heroism to defeat fascism in youth. the house passed the ghost army congressional gold medal act that i introduced last spring. and now the senate is asking passage of the companion bill, s.1404 introduced by mr. markey. this would right the wrong by awarding the congressional gold medal to those living members of the ghost army and we will recognize the families of those who have passed. i am proud that 75 years of their service the ghost army is timely getting some of the recognition it earned. i take a moment to recognize the contributions of so many individuals in getting this bill over the finish line. first, i want to thank my colleagues, representative stuart and his staff for dedicating themselves to this bill and recognize a good friend rick beyer and rick ikorn. and i recognize all of the ghost army legacy project. this coalition made up largely of family members worked tirelessly to help me and representative stuart get the co-sponsors necessary to pass this bill. it is a testament to this institution that a handful of passionate citizens without the help of special interest groups or lobbyists can send this legislation to president biden's desk. it is fitting we pass this bill today. of the morning 60 million americans who served in world war ii, barely 142 are still alive including nine members of the ghost army. we should never forget the contributions of the ghost army and the servicemembers of world war ii to preserve democracy around the world. this is personal to me because my father was a fighter pilot and p.o.w. during world war ii. today we single out the brave actions of the ghost army, i hope we take a moment to remember all our world war ii veterans. what made the ghost army special was not just their extraordinary courage but creativity. their story reminds us that listening to using sound deception can help us solve challenges like defeating tyranny. i encourage my colleagues to support the bill and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: i have no further speakers and prepared to close and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. mr. barr: i thank my friend and colleague. i reiterate the significance of the ghost army and i thank my colleagues for noting the greatest generation and their significant contributions to our country. i urge my colleagues to support s.1404 and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: on a personal note, i would like to recognize first lieutenant bernard mason who is mentioned in the text of this bill for his leadership in leading the 16-men detachment special troops during the invasion of normandy. he was a constituent of mine and his wife and children still live in my district and i thank them for lieutenant mason's life and service and we are honoring his service. the stories of the the innovation displayed by the members of the ghost army during world war ii reads like something like out of a hollywood blockbuster script. the members of the ghost army are timely recognized for their contribution for defeating the nazi powers during world war ii. and their unique contributions to the war effort. i thank mr. markey and ms. kuster to ensure that the stories of these men of the ghost army receive the recognition they deserve. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania yields the balance of her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass senate 1404. those in favor, say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 being in the affirmative the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from pennsylvania seek recognition? ms. dean: i move the house suspend the rules and pass the bill senate 452 willie o'ree congressional gold medal act sponsored by senator stabenow. the clerk: to award congressional gold medal willie o'ree in his commitment to hockey, inclusion and recreational activity pursuant to the rule, ms. dean and the gentleman from kentucky, mr. barrr each will be recognized for 20 minutes. ms. dean: i ask that members may have five legislative days to insert extraneous material thereon. the speaker pro tempore: without objection ms. dean: i yield myself such time as i pay consume. i rise in strong support s. # 452. i want to thank the gentlewoman from michigan, senator stabenow and the gentleman from illinois, representative quigley, for their work on this bill, i honors willie o'ree, a trailblazer for diversity and inclusion in sports and first black player in the national hockey league. born in 1935 in new brunswick, canada, he made a name for himself as a standout athlete in hockey and baseball. upon experiencing racial discrimination and the effects of segregation while in the south for minor league tryouts, he shifted his focus to ice hockey. in 1958, o'ree was called up to play professionally as a winger for the boston brewins andrew: became the first profession allies hockey player in the league. and enduring racist attacks, o'ree persevered and continued to play professional hockey for 22 years. the national hockey league hired o'ree as the first diversity ambassador which transformed the predominantly white sport of hockey by providing access and opportunity to children of all races. o'ree has devoted thousands of hours for hockey is for everyone, programs that provide community outreach and support and live out hockey's core values of commitment, discipline and respect for teammates, copies and parents. in 2018, 60 years after o'ree broke the color barrier he was inducted in the nhl hockey hall of fame in recognition of his longstanding sport for greater access and diversity in the sport. this bill honors his legacy on and off the eyes. i thank ms. stabenow and mr. quigley and i urge members to vote yes. i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from kentucky is recognized. mr. barr: i rise in support of s.452, willie o'ree congressional gold medal act. willie o'ree's story is one of determination and perseverance, and willie born october 15, 1935 was the youngest of 13 children of parents rose bud and harry o'ree. the o'ree family was one of two black families that lived in frederickton, new brunswick. he is a child slave ancestors. he fashioned skates out of metal blocks and took to his frozen lawn in the back yard. two years later at age five, he began to play organized hockey. many refer to him as the jackie robinson of hockey. interestingly at dodger stadium in 1949 two years after robinson broke the color barrier, 14-year-old o'ree had the opportunity to meet his hero. he said as robinson made his way to the receiving line, willie arrived patiently and when he said, i am a baseball player but what i really love hockey and robinson said i didn't know black kids played hockey. in 1958 willie put on a boston uniform for a game against the canadiens and first black player in nhl history. o'ree played in 45 games fr the bruins hiding a secret that he was blind in one eye. willie paved the way for a new generation of hockey players. wayne simmons of the toronto maple leaves said he set the table and did it with dignity and class. i thought of his story when teachers, players or coaches would laugh of my dream. willie's story did not end after he left the eyes. 17 years after he retired, the nhl hired o'ree as the first ever diversity ambassador. this role put willie in a position to grow the p sport to provide access and motivation for children of all ethnicities origins and abilities. .. 64 years to the day after his entrance into the league, his number 22 jerseys was raised to the rafters in t.d. garden, an ultimate of d -- an act of ultimate recognition. willie o'ree forever changed the sport of hockey. his determination and perseverance should be recognized with a congressional gold medal. i urge my colleagues to support this bill, and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kentucky reserves. the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: mr. speaker, i am pleased to now yield five minutes to the gentleman from illinois, mr. quigley. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. quigley: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, two days ago our country took time to celebrate the life of dr. martin luther king jr. and reflect on the ongoing effort to ensure racial equality in america. it is fitting, then, that today this body considers legislation to honor the life of willie o'ree, who, like dr. king, was on the frontlines of racial integration in america and dedicated his life to the ideals of diversity and inclusion. in 1958, willie o'ree integrated the sport of hockey by becoming the first black player in the national hockey league. well-known of the stories of barrier-breaking athletes like jackie robinson in baseball or bill russell in basketball. mr. o'ree's story is less known. he was born in canada, the youngest of 13 children. his grandfather, paris o'ree, escaped slavery in south carolina and fled to canada. growing up in canada, he quickly developed both a love and talent for hockey. during his early years playing hockey, he was blinded in one eye by a stray puck. however, this setback did not deter him from his dream of playing professional hockey. a few years later, he finally got the call to play in the nhl with the bruins, becoming the first black player to do so. but the road ahead was not easy. during his time playing for the bruins, he endured racist slurs by fans and opposing teams. he suffered illegal hits and rough treatment constantly. still, that was not enough to deter him. he remained committed to playing hockey and would so for 22 years in the nhl and the minor leagues. think about that. he played 22 years of professional hockey while enduring racism and bigotry and only having vision in one eye. willie never stopped -- he never intended to stop the flight for inclusion in the league once he left playing hockey. after hanging up his skates, he became the nhl's diversity ambassador, a role he continues until this day. in the 1990's, he established a hockey is for everyone, an opportunity to play hockey and develop important life skills. since the inception, 120,000 children have participated in this program. after his remarkable career on and off the ice, he began to receive the recognition he deserved. in 2018, he was inducted into the hockey hall of fame. and last night his jersey was retired by the boston bruins. it has been my honor to know willie over the past decade and help lead this bill to award him a congressional gold medal. i'm thankful to my colleagues, representatives higgins, pressley, emmer and katko who led this legislation in the house and senators stabenow and scott who helped in the senate. when i was young, my heros were hockey players. they were talented, strong, and skilled. they taught me many things. and at the time, they were all white. willie fought his entire life, he fought to change that during and after his career. hockey, the sports world, and our country are better off because of his efforts. i had no idea that the year i was born willie o'ree broke the color barrier in hockey, and it wasn't until years later when i had the honor of meeting him that i learned that my own heroes from the chicago blackhawks and their fans gave him some of the harshest treatment during his time in the nhl. his life has been a true testament to those values i learned as a young hockey fan -- strength, courage, and perseverance, even in the face of tremendous odds. he's a true gift to our country, to the sport, and i and so many -- and i and so many others love. awarding him the congressional gold medal will serve as a small but important token of our country's gratitude. thank you and i yield back. ms. dean: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania reserves. the gentleman from kentucky is recognized. mr. barr: mr. speaker, i'd like to yield as much time to he may consume to a member of congress who not only played collegiate hockey and is a hockey dad and spent over 20 years as a hockey coach, he's one of the best fans of the game of hockey in the united states congress, the gentleman from minnesota, mr. emmer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from minnesota is recognized. mr. emmer: mr. speaker, a little over the top. i rise in support of s. 452, the willie o'ree congressional gold medal act, and to recognize the incredible impact that willie o'ree has had on our great sport of hockey. willie etched his name into the history books in 1958 when he became one of the select few, and it is a very few, who got called up from the minors to play for the national hockey league -- in the national hockey league for boston bruins. willie broke down racial barriers, for sure. he would go on to play for more than 24 years as a professional hockey player, despite facing countless challenges on and off the ice. but willie o'ree remains a trailblazer for many, but his contributions certainly did not end after his retirement from his playing career in 1979. as we've heard, in 1996, he became the nhl's diversity ambassador. in this capacity, he established the hockey is for everyone initiative, to create a culture of incluesivity and provide an opportunity for disadvantaged children across this country in north america to play the game. his work continues until this day to reinvigorate and grow hockey and serve as an example for underrepresented communities here at home and on an international level. as the nhl and teams across the country finally recognize willie o'ree's incredible contributions to hockey, today is congress' opportunity to honor a true legend of the game that is oved and enjoyed by millions. remember, we know -- we know that hockey was given us -- given to us directly from god, because it is played on ice, which can only exist in heaven. and i'm proud to co-lead this long overdue effort, and i urge my colleagues in the house of representatives to honor this icon of our god-given sport by voting yes on s. 452, and i yield back. mr. barr: mr. speaker, i continue to reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kentucky reserves. the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: mr. speaker, i'm pleased to now yield four minutes to the gentlewoman from massachusetts, ms. pressley. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from massachusetts is recognized. ms. pressley: thank you, mr. speaker. i rise in strong support of our bill, the willie o'ree congressional gold medal act, legislation which honors the historic career and life and service of the one and only willie o'ree. with today's vote in the people's house, we honor a giant, and it has been an honor to be a steward in this effort. willie is a trailblazer, an icebreaker, a hero, an activist whose powerful story is unknown to too many. that ends here today. we change that. 64 years ago in the midst of the fight to end jim crow, willie o'ree made history with the boston bruins by becoming the first black player to play in the national hockey league. a descendent of enslaved people who escaped the horrors of slavery through the underground railroad, willie was born and raised in new brunswick, canada, and the youngest of 13 children. his love of the game began at the young age of 3 where he earned his stripes playing alongside his older siblings. known as the jackie robinson of hockey, he spent more than two decades playing professional hockey, all while hiding the fact that he was nearly completely blind in one eye. willie o'ree was a young and fast left winger, but he could not outskate the racist backlash in response to his desegregating the national hockey league. as a sole black player in the nhl at the time, willie endured relentless bigotry, racism, discrimination and violence from fans and players, both on and off the ice, and despite it all, willie embodied resilience, grace, dignity, and never gave up on the determination to live out his dream. in the decades following his historic career on the ice, willie spent his time paying it forward to the next generation of icebreakers. as the nhl's director of youth development and a diversity ambassador, he's worked to increase opportunities for young black and brown players so that they, too, can take their rightful place in the big league. in 2018, willie was formally inducted into the nhl hall of fame and while his time with the boston bruins was short, his legacy lives on to this very day. earlier this week, mayor michelle wu declared january 18 in the city of boston willie o'ree day. marking the momentous day 64 years ago when willie hit the ice and changed the game forever. just yesterday, the boston bruins formally retired his number 24 jersey, raising it in the rafters at the garden alongside other bruins. black history is american history, and today, we salute an american hero, an inspiration. willie demonstrates for us the power of holding on to one's dreams. an ice and ceiling breaker. i'd like to thank representatives quigley, katko, emmer for their partnership and the 290 colleagues who co-sponsored this piece of legislation in order to get it across the finish line. my team and i have been working diligently, pushing and organizing since 2019, and this work would not have been possible without the support and partnership 69 long -- partnership of the long time grassroots activists who organized to ensure that willie, who took up space, who created space now takes his rightful space in our history books. the congressional gold medal is congress' highest expression of a national appreciation and recognition. with this honor, willie will join history makers like jackie robinson, the reverend dr. martin luther king jr. and coretta scott king and the tuskegee airmen. incredible company for an incredible man. ms. dean: i yield the gentlelady one minute. ms. pressley: willie o'ree, now at the age of 86 years young, today, willie o'ree, we give you your flowers. go, bruins. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from kentucky is recognized. mr. barr: mr. speaker, i would just like to once again reiterate the significance of this congressional gold medal. willie o'ree not only forever changed the sport of hockey, but he truly helped change the history of this country. his determination and perseverance, his trail blazing spirit should be recognized with the congressional gold medal, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kentucky yields back the balance of his time. the gentlewoman from pennsylvania is recognized. ms. dean: i'm now pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from new york, mr. higgins. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. higgins: mr. speaker, i rise today in support of s. 452, the willie o'ree congressional gold medal act. willie o'ree, which has been already said, was a trailblazer for hockey, both on and off the ice. he was to the national hockey league what jackie robinson was to major league baseball. as the first black player in the national hockey league, he endured racism, bigotry, prejudice from both players and fans. despite in, he -- despite this, he played more than two decades in the national hockey league and in the minors developing his skills, later becoming the national hockey league's diversity ambassador. willie o'ree broke down historic barriers and paved the way for young athletes in marginalized communities. in 2012, he visited my community for the willie o'ree skills weekend, hosted by the national hockey league buffalo sabres. today, we honor his dedication to improving diversity and accessibility in sports, which makes him most deserving of this high honor. he is an inspiration to all athletes and particularly to young athletes of color in western new york and throughout the nation. i strongly urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and i yield back. .the speaker pro tempore: theges recognized. >> mr. speaker, i yield myself the balance of the time. willie o'ree is often referred to as the, quote, jackie robinson of ice hockey, unquote, for helping to end racial segregation in the national hockey league. yet o'ree's positive impact on the sport of ice hockey goes far beyond his role in ending racial segregation in the sport. this bill honors o'ree for both his barrier-breaking role and his decades of championing diversity and greater youth access to the sport. ms. dean: i thank ms. stabenow and mr. quigley, the lead sponsor of the house version of the bill, and for our other colleagues who worked so hard on this bill, for ensuring that mrg legacy of sportsmanship and inclusion receive the recognition he so richly deserves. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from pennsylvania yields the balance of her time. the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass senate 452. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, -- ms. dean: mr. speaker, i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-s of house resolution 8, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [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: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> as the member designated by ms. roybal-allard, i inform the house that ms. roybal-allard will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition? mr. langevin: mr. speaker, as the member designated by -- mr. cicilline: mr. speaker, as the member designated by ms. pingree of maine, the only state in the united states that has one syllable, i inform the house that ms. pingree will vote yes on s. 452. as the member designated by ms. bass of california, home to the hottest, dryest and lowest national park in the country, death valley, ms. bass will vote yes on s. 452. and as the member designated by ms. wilson of florida, whose state reptile is the alligator, i inform the house that ms. wilson will vote yes on s. 452 . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arizona seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative boyle of the keystone state, i inform the house that representative boyle will vote aye on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. mann of kansas, i inform the house that mr. mann will vote yea on s. 452 . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. reed of new york, i inform the house that mr. reed of new york will vote yea on concurring to the senate amendment h.r. 1192. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arkansas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. stewart of utah, i inform the house that mr. stewart will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. reed of new york, i inform the house that mr. reed of new york will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. fallon of texas, i inform the house that mr. fallon will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? mr. jeffries: as the member designated by chairman scott, chairwoman lofgren, representative strickland and representative carter, i inform the house that these members will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, if all members vote yes on s. 452. trone of maryland, defazio of oregon. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. hagedorn of minnesota, i inform the house that mr. hagedorn will be voting yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from delaware seek recognition? ms. blunt rochester: as the member designated by ms. degette of colorado and ms. mccollum of minnesota, i inform the house that ms. degette and ms. mccollum will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mrs. fletcher, i inform the house that ms. flech already vote yes on -- mrs. fletcher will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by chairwoman maxine waters, i inform the house that chairwoman waters will vote yes on s. 452 . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> as the member designated by ms. bush, i inform the house that ms. bush will vote yea on s. 452 . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? mr. raskin: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. ruppersberger of maryland, i inform the house that he will vote aye. as the member designated by mr. welch of vermont, i inform the house that mr. welch will vote aye on s. 452. as the member designated by mr. pocan of wisconsin, i inform the house that mr. pocan will vote aye on s. 452. as the member designated by ms. jayapal of washington state, i inform the house that ms. jayapal will vote aye on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. moore of utah, i inform the house that mr. moore will vote yea on s. 452. mr. raskin: as the member designated by mr. doggett of texas, i inform the house that mr. doggett will vote aye on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? mr. williams: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. louie gohmert from the great state of texas, i inform the house that mr. gohmert will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? mr. pallone: i'm sorry, mr. speaker. as the member designated by mr. albio sires of new jersey, mr. donald payne of new jersey, mrs. bonnie watson coleman of new jersey, ms. kirkpatrick of arizona, and mr. jerry nadler of new york, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> thank you, mr. speaker. as the member designated by mr. rogers of kentucky, i inform the house that mr. rogers will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? mr. soto: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mrs. demings, mr. crist, mr. lawson, i inform the house that these members will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. cawthorn from the great state of north carolina, i inform the house that mr. cawthorn will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. fortenberry of nebraska, i inform the house that mr. fortenberry will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from virginia seek recognition? ms. wexton: as the member designated by -- ms. spanberger: as the member designated by ms. schrier, i inform the house that ms. schrier will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? mr. garcia: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. grijalva of arizona, ms. ocasio-cortez of new york, i inform the house that they will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. kilmer of washington, i inform the house that mr. kilmer will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. connolly: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. schneider of illinois, ms. titus of nevada, and mr. doyle of pennsylvania, i inform the house that mr. schneider, mr. doyle, and ms. titus will vote aye on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? ms. wasserman schultz: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mrs. carolyn maloney of new york, as the member designated by mrs. maloney will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from michigan seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mrs. lawrence, i inform the house that mrs. lawrence will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from north dakota seek recognition? mr. armstrong: mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. tim sons from south carolina, i inform the house that mr. timmons will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. lee of california, pursuant to h.res. 8, i inform the house that ms. lee will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what reason does the lady from new hampshire seek recognition? ms. kuster: madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. brownley and ms. meng, i inform the house that ms. brownley and ms. meng will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? mr. correa: madam speaker, as the member designated by the following members -- grace napolitano, jim costa, vicente gonzalez, fill money vela -- filemon vela, henry cuellar, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does ed lady -- does the lady from virginia seek recognition? ms. wexton: madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. porter and mr. eachin, i inform the house that -- mr. mceachin, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. joyce of pennsylvania, i inform the house that mr. joyce will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. blumenauer of oregon, mr. lowenthal of california, mr. desaulnier of california, and mr. cohen of tennessee, i inform the house that those four members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by mr. kildee, i inform the house that mr. kildee will vote aye on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, as the member designated by mr. donalds, i inform the house that mr. donalds will vote yea. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. dwight evans of pennsylvania's third district, i inform the house that mr. evans will vote yea on s. 452, the willie o'ree congressional gold medal act . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from massachusetts seek recognition? ms. clark: as the member designated by ms. chu, ms. frankel, mrs. hayes and ms. velazquez, i inform the house that those members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from ohio seek recognition? ms. kaptur: as the member designated by mr. bobby rush of chicago, i inform the house that congressman rush will vote yes on senate bill 452 . the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition? mr. beyer: madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. moore of wisconsin, i inform the house that ms. moore will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from florida seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. mrs. cammack: as the member designated by mr. donalds of the be sunshine state, i inform the house that mr. donalds will vote yea on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 426, the nays are zero. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlelady from new york seek recognition? >> madam speaker, by direction of the house republican conference, i send to the desk privileged resolution and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 875. resolved that the following named member be and is hereby elected to the following standing committees of the house of representatives. committee on ways and means, mr. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table . the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the house will be in order. the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from connecticut seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. i move to address the house for one minute and request permission to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, on november 12, medicare announced the largest part-b premium increase in the history of the medicare program, 14%. mr. courtney: this did not come at a worse time in terms of the cost of living that many seniors are facing. looking closely at that decision, one of the driving factors was the projected cost of the drug which was priced at $56,000 per year for alzheimer's patients. who were, again, very excited about the possibility of getting the benefit of that drug. but the cost of that drug was one of the big driving forces for a 14% rate increase. on december 20, the biogen that merchandized -- manufactured it cut the cost of the drug to $28,000. about two weeks ago, secretary becerra correctly instructed the actuaries of medicare to go back and try and recalculate the the medicare part b premium to see if there was a relief for seniors. today 31 members of the house democratic caucus are sending a letter to secretary becerra. again, a plawding his decision -- applauding his decision and strongly advocating that medicare go back in and recalculate that rate increase which will provide tremendous assistance for seniors at exactly the time that they need it. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> request permission to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks as necessary. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. i rise today to honor lieutenant mark tocterman, who is retiring from the bay county sheriff's department after 23 years. he also served this country for 22 years in the navy before that. during his time in the sheriff's office, lieutenant tocterman representative my office, representative graham, and other offices as well. he served as regional coordinator for the special olympics law enforcement torch run and the vice president of the defenders motorcycle club. mr. dunn: he has a heart of gold. he's a doting father, a loving husband to his wife, virginia, and additionally a dear friend to me and everyone on my staff. though we're sad that he is retiring, we're proud of the impact he's made in our community. thank you, lieutenant tocterman. we are all grateful for your service. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from michigan seek recognition? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks as needed. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, i rise today in solidarity with the jewish community, with jewish parents, with our rabbis, people who are still reeling in the aftermath of yet another attack on one of their houses of worship. anti-semitism is real and growing, and it is a threat to our neighbors and to our collective conscious as a country. ms. stevens: paired with near unfettered access to firearms, spaces with online hate to fester, and xenophobic dog whistles from our nation's highest offices, it has and can cost us american lives. we fail when our educators and faith leaders need to supplement their daily duties with violent intervention rehearsals. we have failed when our students and congregates need to calculate exit plans. and we have failed when we fear of the next attack that impedes our neighbors' ability to practice their faith. to the jewish community of michigan's 11th district and beyond, i see you, i am here for you, and i will continue to do my part to uproot intolerance and hate wherever it grows. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i ask for 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. >> madam speaker, i rise today to recognize lieutenant jason maloney and the south lake fire department for their selfless acts of service to protect our state during the recent wildland fire deployments. ms. van duyne: southlake fire department took part as part of the texas interstate fire mutual aid system, to assist with wildland fire in the texas panhandle. it covered nearly 24,000 acres and stretched nearly 23 miles long. jason moloney served as a strike team leader which included five wild brush land trucks and a command vehicle. during the second deployment, the strike team was deployed on january 4 and demobilized january 9. while he was on the frontline, his wife, velvet, worked tirelessly treating covid-19 treatments as a respiratory therapist and taking care of their two young children. both jason and velvet served our state and sacrificed their time. thank you and the southlake fire department for providing first class work to our community. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from ohio seek recognition? ms. kaptur: madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized 1. -- for one minute. ms. kaptur: madam speaker, i rise to thank joe biden, president joe biden, and the majority hereto with some of our republican friends who passed the bipartisan infrastructure legislation not long ago. the biden administration just announced this morning three quarters of a billion dollars of investment in the great lakes region, an awesome amount, to take care of projects that had been sitting on the shelf for over a quarter century. for the modernization of the sue locks, we could not conduct war without those locks being operational and they've sat around with no investment. god bless joe biden for his patriotism to this country and also for what is going to happen at brandon locks south of chicago with the barrier that will be built for the asian carp don't get into the entire great lakes and eat up all of our native species. three quarters of a billion dollars in the great lakes today, what a phenomenal intergenerational announcement. thank you to all the members who supported that important legislation and thank you to joe biden, the president of the united states. i yield. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from louisiana 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 gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> madam speaker, i rise today to honor councilman harry silver, a truly distinguished servant as he marks his 100th birthday. he served on the alexandria city council for years. ms. letlow: harry stepped up to serve, wanting to give back to the community that he called home. after his initial appointment in 2005, the people of alexandria re-elected harry to the council four times. at the time of his retirement, harry was both the oldest active elected official in the united states and the oldest elected official in louisiana history. in his farewell message to the city he said, whether you or your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents agreed with me or not over the years, i hope everyone agrees that i acted only as i felt was best for our mutual home. that, madam speaker, is all that we can ask of a public servant. we are honored and proud to salute harry silver of alexandria, louisiana, on his 100th birthday. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from michigan seek recognition? >> request 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. >> thank you, madam speaker. over the past weekend, the democratic party in my home state published a graphic saying that public schools do not exist to serve the parents of those students, and rightfully, there was an outcry before they took it down and disavowed what they posted. parents absolutely have the right to know what their kids are learning, and over the past year and a half, they've been fighting back against administrators and unions who have kept students out of the classroom. mr. moolenaar: when public school teachers in chicago went on strike, the phones went off the hook, as parents had enough search for classroom opportunities for their kids. support for parental involvement and school choice has risen over the past year. and my colleagues and i will soon be introducing a resolution to honor national school choice week that will be next week from january 23 through january 29. parents and students should be given every opportunity to find a classroom where the kids can attend in person, see their friends, and learn directly from a teacher. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. johnson, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. johnson: thank you, madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. johnson: madam speaker, we might be starting a new year but so far, the problems remain the same. this week marks the one-year anniversary of joe biden being sworn in as president of the united states and, of course, also, the one-year anniversary of one party far left democrat rule in washington. the past year was one of unprecedented crises as a direct result. the american people face an economic crisis, an energy crisis, a border crisis, an education crisis, a crime crisis, a covid-19 crisis, and a national security crisis. as the direct result of joe biden and congressional democrats' failed leadership and their far left socialist agenda. in this hour, across -- a cross section of my republican colleagues, will address and highlight these issues as we stand for the opposite policies and we are very anxious to be returned to the majority so we can solve these ongoing dilemmas. madam speaker, i am delighted to yield, first, to the gentleman from texas, dr. babin. mr. babin: thank you so very much, the gentleman from louisiana, my good friend right across the sabine river from me in texas. no president has ever had a worst first year in office than joe biden. and sadly, is deteriorating 42% approval rating perfectly mirrors detear or ating state of our country. we're facing crises on nearly every front and our commander in chief, who by the way is responsible for creating each and every one of these crises, is doing absolutely nothing to stop them. however, the most threatening of these concerns is still the unmitigated disaster that is raging at our southern border. more than 1.7 million illegal alien apprehensions happened under biden's watch last year. and those are just the ones that we caught. instead of securing our borders, this administration spent all of 2021 sweeping the rule of law under the rug and using the cover of darkness to fly thousands of unveted and un-covid tested illegal aliens across the country to be released into our neighborhoods. how many more innocent women and children need to be assaulted, raped, and trafficked? how many more americans need to overdose on chinese fentanyl that is being smuggled across the border? how many more terrorists need to be caught trying to infiltrate our nation? what level of threat do we need to reach to finally garner some action from this president? americans are tired of paying for this administration's ignorance and political games. this is a new year, mr. president. use it wisely. it's past time that you live up to the oath that you swore. i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. there are so many crises, it's hard for us to keep count. i yield next to my dear friend from the state of indiana, mrs. walorski. two minutes. mrs. walorski: i thank my friend for yielding. this week our nation is making a solemn anniversary 49 years since the deadly roe v. wade decision. for nearly half a century, pro-life americans have been standing strong to defend precious human life and the most vulnerable among us. right now, we're facing some tough challenges. under the current one-party rule in washington, americans are witnessing unprecedented attacks on pro-life protections across the country. time and time again, i've come to this floor to oppose democrats' radical anti-life agenda. as many times as it takes, i will stand here to reject the attacks on life, and i'll vote no on taxpayer-funded services. including the wicked proposal to permit abortion on demand at anytime bank rolled by the american people. these are dark days in this country. at the same time, we have so much to be happy and hopeful for as we look at this new year. the supreme court, including my fellow hoosier, justice amy comey barrett, is addressing the most significant change to roe v. wade since 1973. this could be the final anniversary that we stand here and proclaim under roe v. wade. for five decades, we've been in a long battle against abortion, and this is a time to restore the dig night of life and protect life once and for all. as a pro-life lawmaker, i'm proud to stand alongside millions of americans in indiana, across the country, who believe in the inherent value of life. our enduring commitment to life and the truth will prevail. thank you. i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, dear friend. you're exactly right, the sanctity of human life is one of the central principles that the country is founded upon. it does get darkest before the dawn. there is hope on the horizon. madam speaker, i'm delighted to yield next from new jersey -- we go to new jersey, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. van drew. mr. van drew: mr. vice chair, thank you for yielding and thank you for your leadership. the president's most important job is to lead, to lead and protect our country. yet, time and again, all we have seen from president biden is a failure to lead. biden's handling of afghanistan led to the death of 13 american service members and left hundreds more abandoned. this was a failure to lead. biden's handling of the border has been a disaster. with more than two million illegal immigrants being apprehended at our border. this was a failure to lead. biden failed to shut down covid-19 and has allowed more americans to die from this disease despite widespread access to vaccines. this was a failure to lead. . inflation is at a 40-year high. supply chains are crippled. labor shortages have hindered an economic recovery. this has been a failure to lead. soft on crime policy has resulted in 16 of america's largest cities to suffer from new highs and homicide rates and 115% increase on attacks against our law enforcement officials. all while bribe and house democrats demand to defund our police. this has been a failure to lead. this is not the america i know. the america i know is strong. and it deserves a strong leader. not the worst president in our history. not one that continues time and again to fail to lead. i yield back. mr. johnson: those are not just republican talking points. "politico" had a story this morningment they asked americans in a nationwide poll to give the president a letter grade and 37% of americans give him an f. 85% or more of republicans, but also they say an alarming number of democrats give a d or f grade. an f-minus as mr. van drew. i yield to my good friend from the state of tennessee, in burchett. mr. burchett: the great state of tennessee. for the last year joe biden and the democrats have completely controlled our government in washington, commerce. the first order of business when they took power was to ram through congress almost $2 trillion in federal spending under the so-called american rescue plan. when this bill became law last march, democrats said it was necessary to fight the coronavirus. 10 months later our country is still dealing with the same problems democrats claim their bills would solve. covid tests are sold out at drugstores and testing centers have hour-long lines. not even kamala harris can give a straight answer about when americans will see at-home test kits this. week? next week? sometimes in the future. i don't think she knows. we have overwhelmed hospitals that are struggling to treat patients due to staffing shortages. corrupt teachers unions are forcing students out of the classroom and bullying parents. businesses of all sizes cannot find enough workers to keep up with the demand. the american rescue plan failed miserably to address our -- or prevent these issues, madam speaker. that's because it mostly focused on funding liberal special interests instead of targeted pandemic relief. this whole debacle determined two things. congress cannot spend its way out of a problem, and democrats will always use a crisis to advance their political agenda. joe biden promised to shut down the coronavirus when he took office. one year later all she's shut down are america's hospitals and businesses. thank you, vice chairman johnson, for your adequate and lackluster leadership skills, i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you for keeping me humble. i'm delighted, madam speaker, to yield to another great gentleman from the state of texas, mr. pfluger. we just come straight to the floor from a members and media round table on the border in crime crises. he led that so ably. delighted to hear what he has to say in his two minutes. mr. pfluger: thank you to mr. johnson. madam speaker, it's hard to pick the crisis to talk about because there are so many. i'd like to talk about unity. i was at the inauguration last year. i heard the speech. i heard him campaign. his message was centered on restoring unity to an angry nation. he promised to bring us together. well, he has brought the american people together. that is for sure. because everyone now understands the full magnitude of the crises that we are going through. he has united the country in that fact alone. one year ago i want everyone to remember we were not experiencing the inflation that we are. the highest rate in 40 years. we did not have foreign adversaries who were treading over our policies and look the -- looking at us as week. right now we have a border that is in complete chaos and crisis. it's only been one year under president biden's reign our nation is directionless in the misof chaos. our international reputation and influence has been squandered through policy failure after policy failure. when you look at this poster right here and look at the energy crisis that we are dealing with, the ukraine right now is in the midst of not knowing whether or not they are going to be invaded by the russians. what a terrible position to be in. the president has green lighted nord stream. he failed to sanction the nord stream pipeline. the energy crisis that's going on in eastern europe right now, the fact we are not strong around the world in our messaging to deter our enemies and to help our allies is directly leading to this issue that we see in the ukraine right now. you know who is watching? china. china is watching this. and they are wondering whether or not taiwan will be next. we have got to get back to a strong, firm understanding of law and order. the same discussion that we just had on the border crisis. we have got to reassert our leadership to make sure that our country, the greatest nation that this world has ever known, will choose to follow law and order. with that i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you for that keen insight you gained faithfully serving our country in the military. thank you. delighted to yield to another gentleman who has served us so well on the frontlines of law enforcement, mr. stauber of minnesota. mr. stauber: thank you very much. madam speaker, i could speak for hours about this administration's multiple failures over the last year. but i only have a couple minutes. i'll just cover inflation, one of them. since joe biden took office, inflation has risen every single month. americans are paying more for just about everything while earning less in every paycheck. this is not sustainable and it didn't have to be this way. this administration is so out of touch with the average american despite inflation reaching a 40-year high, they are still pushing for more reckless spending that will only make this crisis worse. american families are paying substantially more for everyday products from gasoline to groceries to energy for heating their homes this winter. to heat their homes in northern in in -- minnesota when it's 30 below for a week straight. make no mistake, inflation is a -- an attack on us all, special our working class and those on fixed incomes. it is no secrete we live in a very polarized nation right now, but there is one thing a strong majority of americans agree on. joe biden's first year in office has been disastrous to the american people. we deserve better. madam chair, i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. madam speaker, delighted to yield next to the gentleman from utah, mr. owens. mr. owens: thank you my good friend from louisiana for your great leadership. over the past year i spent time throughout utah's fourth district. i have heard from utahans from all walks of life and month after month the shame concerns. soaring inflation, skyrocketing prices, and decreasing wages. that's no surprise because gas is up 49.6%. used cars are up 37.3%. gas utilities are up 24.1%. meat, fish, eggs are up 12.5%. electricity is up #.3%. on top of this as real wages have decreased eight of the last 11 months our economy is still missing millions of prepandemic jobs and employers are continuing to struggle with consistent labor shortages. what is this administration doing to help? you can't make this up. this inflation is high class problems and transitory. adding a national debt with money we don't have on programs we don't need. just last week, advocating a -- to neuk the filibuster the president defended for decades to push through a radical federal takeover of our elections. our economy still should be thriving right now. but inaction on purpose by this administration has massively increased our national debt, which still sits at $29 trillion, by the way, stifle growth, and financially cripple american families and small businesses. we are closing out the first year of vice-presidency with the worst inflation in 30 years. open borders. a botched withdrawal from afghanistan. and preeted push to increase the size, scope, and reach of federal government. this year i encourage president biden to start paying attention to real needs of real americans, maybe then we could "real one call of the week" results. real results. thank you. mr. johnson: i think one of the key words you said was purposeful. these crises are not happenchance. they are direct results of policy choices. madam speaker, i yield now to my good friend, the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. grothman. mr. growthman: so many areas to pick from -- mr. grothman: so many areas to pick from. no country can exist with immigration laws and i can't think of anywelfare reform the new administration is more of a change from the old. we have gone through a situation about 25,000 people every year across our southern border. now routinely over 75,000. that's received a lot of attention, but not attention is the lack of people being pushed back across the border if they are caught here breaking crimes or otherwise. in the first six months of 2020 about 93,000 people were kicked out. this time around is about 18,000. so we have about another 70,000 people who we don't want in this country primarily because they have broken the law under the biden administration. we don't kick them out. we have to also look at the carrot that they are giving people to come here. in the build back better bill, trying to give free college education to people who come here illegally. every democrat but one in this body voted for it. saying, yes, absolutely. we not only want people to come here illegally, we'll give them a free college education. free medical care. unbelievable. and showing that the number one priority is to get people here illegally. they are not even given tests for covid, which says something or other. on the one hand it's important that everybody even get a shot if they are hanging around washington, d.c. but if you are coming across the southern border, we don't care. unbelievable. quite a change in america compared to what it used to be. and it's going to take a lot of work. we got a new president to undo the huge amount of damage that's been done to the fabric of this country in the first 12 months of joe biden. mr. john son: thank you. so well said. it's as if they are incentivizing lawlessness. that's what we are seeing. everybody knows it. the gentleman from california is next. madam speaker, happy to yield two minutes to mr. la mall if a. lamalfa. mr. lamalfa imon thank you my colleagues, mr. johnson. of course this week does mark the first year of the biden administration. unfortunately it was one of unprecedented crisis. it's a target rich environment for us to talk about here tonight. the democrats have control of the executive branch, both chambers of congress, and allowing them to pass so far $2 trillion out of their $9 trillion plans. this action has caused the highest inflation in decades, hidle middle and lower income class hardest in this country. this year under democrat leadership, americans are paying more for just about everything, howflg, clothes, food, and gas especially on energy. on the way to the airport in california it was $5 plus. $5.39 at one place. incredible. the dead of winter people are seeing the cost of heating their homes skyrocket. when you stop all sorts of development of energy in this country, you are not going to have the supply. that sends a signal to the whole market to raise prices. including the biden administration telling opec overseas, go ahead send us more while cutting off our own pipelines and further development on federal lands. this supports ripples through everything else and costs. my real life as a farmer we are going to see our costs of energy whether it's diesel fuel, gasoline, and fertilizer skyrocket. that's because it has to be passed along to the con-- consumer at the store or farmers go broke. small business owners face the same thing. everything is going up more in costs. vaccine mandates, less employees. i wish we could paint a brighter picture and not appear to be a partisan one. it isn't. it's about having success as a country. unfortunately, the biden administration doesn't seem to have a clue what that success would look like. indeed, they are chasing their own mandates, putting us in a terrible position as a people, and the economy going forward. they need to change their thinking or the voters need to change them out. i yield back. mr. johnson: it's not partisanship. we are sharing the facts. you are right. i would encourage my colleagues, there are so many who want to speak, it is a target rich environment, we'll try to stick to two minutes on these yields. delighted to yield to the gentlelady, ms. hartsman. --hartzler. mrs. hartzler: tomorrow will mark one year since bribe's inauguration. are we bert off from this administration? judging by his all-time low approval ratings, the answer from americans is a resounding no. everywhere you look there is a crisis riddled with incompetence, division, and dysfunction. at our southern border, biden has allowed nearly two million illegal immigrants to enter our nation, creating the worst border crisis in 30 years. in the classroom, biden has targeted parents and their role in education. his add m. even lobbied for them to be called domestic terrorists. in our communities, violent crime is an all time high. last year the murder rate was higher than at any point since 1996. . high gas prices and supply chain issues continue to dog this administration. on the world stage, biden botched our withdrool in afghanistan, make -- withdrawal in afghanistan, making us a laughing stock to our adversaries, all of this resulting in the death of 13 services, including one from my home state of missouri. instead of addressing these issues, president biden has doubled down on our far left socialist policies, out-of-control spending, and incompetence. it's past time for a change. america deserves better. it needs leadership that listens and fights for hardworking families, not against them. i'm proud to help lead the fight alongside my fellow republicans to reverse course by unleashing our economy, securing our border, respecting parents, defending life and our foundational values, and providing for the common defense. on this one-year anniversary commemorating the misery of the biden administration, we commit ourselves to never stop fighting for what is right, to work harder than ever, to never give up. america is depending on us. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. so well said. madam speaker, i yield next to the gentleman who hails from the state of the new national championship football team, mr. clyde. mr. clyde: thank you, vice chairman johnson. madam speaker, tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of president biden's inauguration, meaning, americans have now endured 365 days of an absent administration, 52 weeks of policy failures, 12 months of utter turmoil, and one year of crippling crises. earlier today a rasmussen poll revealed that 60% of the country reveals the administration was unsuccessful. with a third of the democrats believing biden's first year was a failure. all of this has contributed to his abysmal 33% rating, the lowest since jimmy carter. in all sincerity, i didn't imagine this much damage could be done in just one year. but here we are facing an economic crisis with hyper-inflation, supply chain crisis, a labor shortage crisis, a border crisis, a national security crisis, an energy crisis with incredible gas prices, an education crisis, a covid crisis, a crime crisis, and an election integrity crisis with democrats trying to push through election reforms that would federalize our election and eliminate voter i.d. ultimately, these all stem from a leadership crisis in the white house, a leadership crisis that has caused americans unnecessary hardship. as we enter the second year of the biden administration's rule, the president has an important decision to make. will he continue to side-step from the crises he's created, destined to inflict more destruction, or will he confront these crisis head-on and implement successful solutions? mr. president, the american people demand successful solutions, and they deserve successful solutions. thank you. mr. johnson: they do deserve, it my friend. madam speaker, i'm delighted to yield the next two minutes to the gentleman from tennessee, mr. rose. mr. rose: thank you, vice chairman johnson. president biden ran his campaign on a message of unity, but since day one of his administration, he has been defined by the divisive policies that are the wrong approach for tennessee families and workers. in 2021, we saw cartels take control of our southern border. we saw the worst inflation in decades. we saw afghanistan fall into the hands of terrorists as we hastily and incompetently withdrew our forces from the country, leaving billions of dollars of modern military equipment and hundreds of americans and afghan allies behind. and finally, we saw abusive government overreach in the form of vaccine mandates taken to new heights. with president biden in the white house and democrats in control of congress, americans know 2022 will be no better. according to a recent momentive poll, more than half of americans are more fearful than hopeful about what 2022 has in store for them. and with good reason. just take a glimpse at the state of our economy. the consumer price index rose 7% in december, the highest rate seen since 1982. this comes on the heels of president biden's reckless spending agenda and senseless policies that have created a labor shortage, led to a decline in real personal income, raised costs of consumer goods, gas and home heated costs, contributed to the supply chain disruptions that are causing drastic shortages and bare shelves across america. this is president joe biden's version of america, and it's costing tennesseans more each day. president biden can try to talk around it and often refuses to talk about it at all, but the reality remains the same -- his administration's policies have been devastating to this nation. more than ever, americans want america-first leadership. as we begin the first days of 2022, i remain steadfast in my commitment to focus on the needs of the good folks of tennessee, who i represent. not the whims of the permanent class of political elites in washington, d.c. thank you. and i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. tennessee is well represented. madam speaker, i yield the next two minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, another seasoned, very effective legislator, mr. fitzgerald. mr. fitzgerald: thank you, mr. johnson. madam speaker, this has been a year of crisis under the leadership of president joe biden. the southern border, our country was noticeably lacking leadership and solutions from the white house. instead, president biden took regressive actions. he halted construction on the border wall, brought back catch and release, and got rid of the remain in mexico policy. because of these decisions, over 1.7 million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the southern border since president biden took office. the number of illegal crossings at the border has risen at a rate faster under president biden that -- than at any other time in recent history. and u.s. custom and border protection reported that fentanyl seizures increased 134% in fiscal year 2021. i saw this crisis firsthand when i visited the southern border with my colleagues, and i've led and supported legislative solutions in congress to combat this crisis. but it's disheartening and unacceptable that president biden has neither visited the border to witness the crisis nor does he propose solutions to control the unmanageable levels of border crossings and fentanyl trafficking. to say president biden has underdelivered to the american people is beyond an understatement. i say it again -- this year has been a year of crisis under the leadership of president biden. thank you and i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. what he has delivered is crises upon crises, that's exactly right. madam speaker, i yield the next two minutes to the gentleman from florida, we affectionately refer to as the chief, mr. gimenez. mr. gimenez: thank you, madam speaker. life has been hard for american people as prooirnd concludes had i -- president biden concludes his first year in office. most have bowed down to the radical fringes of the democratic party. liberals have no clue what everyday hardworking americans are going through. they care more about pushing through their radical agenda than helping working families. the result, more inflation, higher gas prices, unconstitutional vaccine mandates, broken supply chains, and americans struggling to make ends meet. on our side of the aisle, republicans are committed to making sure we get the american people back to work, ensuring that small businesses can find employees to help keep their businesses open, making sure americans have uninterrupted access to goods and getting our country roaring back with a strong economy and safe communities. those are the issues that americans really care about. here in washington, republicans will use our congressional authority to hold the biden administration accountable for the afghanistan debacle where we don't know how many americans are still left behind in afghanistan for choosing to wreck our energy sector. where once we were energy independent a year ago, now we're begging opec to please produce more. while handing putin the nord stream 2 pipeline, for allowing our southern borders to be kept wide open, and much, much more. after only a year of the biden administration and his radical governing, our country, we've had enough. the american people have had enough, and our people, our country deserve better. thank you and i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. so well said. madam speaker, we cover in the republican caucus literally co-to coast. -- coast to coast. we go from florida to california. mr. obernolte. mr. obernolte: the department of labor released data that should be deeply alarming to every american. this congress, over the last year, has dumped trillions of dollars of excess federal spending into our economy. and at the time, economists warned us that doing so was dangerously inflationary. and unfortunately, those fears have come to fruition. the statistics for the month of december show inflation at nearly 7% on an annualized basis. madam speaker, that's the highest rate of inflation in nearly 40 years. when inflation is caused through government action, as this round of inflation clearly is, it represents an unseen tax that's paid by every american because it raises the prices of everything that we buy. equally alarming is the fact that real wage growth has not kept up with inflation. in fact, the department of labor says that for all of last year, real wage growth was negative nearly 2.5%. madam speaker, if we don't correct this trend, it's going to result in an entire generation of americans being driven towards poverty because their wages are not keeping up with the prices that they pay for the goods they need to survive. madam speaker, we need to get our fiscal house in order and correct this runaway federal spending before our children suffer the consequences. i yield back. mr. johnson: so well said. elections do have consequences and they go to the next generation. i'd yield two minutes to the gentlelady from california, mrs. steel. mrs. steel: thank you, vice chair johnson. this administration's failed policies have led to record inflation and empty store shelves across the country. inflation just reached the highest level in 40 years. and at the same time, basic goods are harder and harder to find at the stores thanks to supply chain mess. every day we see a new story about things getting more expensive. life is getting harder for americans. hardworking families are sick and tired of paying more and getting less. i've introduced three bills that would help fix the supply chain crisis and ensure goods make it to the stores and consumers. these issues are urgent, but there has been noll movement -- no movement on these bills. meanwhile, democrats in washington continue to spend more as your paychecks get smaller and costs continue to rise. i will continue to fight against these bad policies and push for solutions. and i yield back to vice chair johnson. mr. johnson: thank you so much for your strong work on behalf of consumers and small business owners. you do so well. madam speaker, we went from florida to california and now to pennsylvania. yield two minutes to the gentleman from there, mr. keller. mr. keller: thank you. i thank the gentleman from louisiana. madam speaker, as america marks one year since president biden's inauguration, republicans are focused on delivering solutions to the multitude of crisis his administration has created. after one year of one-party rule, the reality is america's families are seeing empty shelves at the grocery stores, businesses cannot find workers, and inflation just hit the highest rate in 40 years. meanwhile, the catastrophe at our southern border continues to worsen. in the past 12 months, more than 1.7 million people have been caught trying to enter the united states illegally. the biden administration can ignore these inconvenient truths all they want, but you know who's noticing? the american people are noticing. these are the same people who are working every day, people driving our economy forward in spite of president biden stacking the odds against them. be assured when republicans regain the majority in the house, we will continue tackling these challenges by getting government out of the way, restoring our god-given freedoms, and ensuring americans keep more of their hard-earned money. thank you and i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. so well said. madam speaker, i yield two minutes now to the gentlelady from arizona, one of the true border states that sees all these crisis firsthand, mrs. lesko. mrs. lesko: thank you very much, madam speaker, and mr. johnson. well, it's been one year since president biden and the democrats have had complete control of running our country. they have the house, the senate, and the presidency. and what have they accomplished in this one year? well, inflation has gone through the roof, 40-year high, gas prices are up, grocery prices are up. utility costs have gone up. and the border is wide open with sex trafficking, human trafficking, fentanyl flooding across our border. covid deaths are higher than they have ever been before. and you know those long lines that you see of americans waiting in line for covid tests, well, guess what, the biden administration diverted over $2 billion that was meant for the testing of covid and for medical supplies and diverted it to house illegal immigrants. . don't be surprised or mistaken, but it's the democrat policies that have caused these problems. what are the democrats doing now while the country is going down the tubes? they are pushing election laws. election laws where they want to rig elections to their favor and fund their own elections. this is insanity. and i hope my democratic colleagues will work together with us to solve the problems that are facing americans today. with that i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. so well said. madam speaker, i now yield two minutes to the gentleman from kansas, mr. mann. mr. mann: i want to thank the gentleman from louisiana for hosting this today. a lot of things to talk about for a year. we could talk about immigration, inflation, crime, afghanistan. the list going on and on. i want to talk for a little bit today about trade, specifically our relationship with china. i rise today to call the biden administration to action regarding our trade partnership or lack thereof with china. china has proven to be a bad faith negotiator and they are using the united states as a doormat. our country made a deal with china two years ago on january 15, 2020 and china has failed to live up to their end of the bargain by a long shot. as part of this deal, china committed to importing $36 billion of u.s. ag products in 2020 and 2021 combined. but they have fallen short by nearly $7 billion. china sold american farmers a bill of goods and the biden administration has made no efforts to rectify this egregious situation. now the phase one is expiring, farmers and ranchers are frustrated to state least. tom vilsack in a feeble effort to assure us said our u.s. trade representative continues to converse with china about the necessity of living up totally and complietly to the phase one trade agreement. making up their deficit over the next several years. this is completely unacceptable. the next several years was never part of this deal, which is not a complex one. china said they would purchase a certain amount of agriculture goods and they have fallen short by a mrnlgin that suggests -- margin that suggests they never intended to live up to their deal. we have not seen any effort from this administration on behalf of farmers which is why i'm standing here to state the obvious. the united states must force china to stand up to their end of the agreement or punish them for failing to do so. at the very least we need this administration developing a new comprehensive realistic deal to correct the deficit. the time for conversations already took place before the deal was signed january 15, 2020 when china signed that deal. this administration, a year in, needs to step up and defend you are -- our farmers and ranchers and our country from being financially manipulated by china. yet another unnecessary crisis. i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you for that plain talk from kansas. madam speaker, yield now to the gentleman from arkansas, one of the brightest and most respected members of congress, mr. hill. mr. hill: i thank the vice chair of the conference. madam speaker, if the biden administration were a new tv show streaming on netflix or hbo, it clearly would have been canceled after the end of the first season. on this anniversary of mr. biden's failed first year, i call attention to the crisis at the southwest border a crisis which bribe and the -- president biden and the democrats have continuously chosen to turn a blind eye. and just one year over 1.7 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at the border. all time high. president trump spent four years fighting to secure our border by enacting policies to keep americans, especially in our communities along the border, safe. after less than a month in office, president biden revoked the trump administration era border policies and replaced them, madam speaker, with what? absolutely nothing. in april, three months after joe biden took office and two months after these policies were rescinded, i made my seventh trip to the southwest border. during that visit, i witnessed the most unstable conditions that i have seen since coming to congress. i immediately called on president biden then to reinstate the trump era policies that were working along our border. finally, just a few weeks ago in december it was announced president biden planned to reimplement president trump's remain in mexico policy. madam speaker, we need action not talk. president biden should visit the border, talk to the communities there. president biden should fire his homeland security secretary who is not getting the job done. in this first failed year, president biden has neglected our southwest border, that neglect is evident with deteriorating conditions, apprehensions at an all-time high and record amounts of illegal drugs cross our open border, poisoning our families. americans deserve better. americans deserve a secure border. americans deserve leadership. i thank my friend and i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, so much. americans do deserve so much better. madam speaker, i yield now to the gentlelady from california, mrs. kim. mrs. kim: thank you, madam speaker. thank you, mr. johnson, for yielding. one year ago i joined several of my colleagues, especially the freshmen republican colleagues, in a letter to president biden showing our willingness to work with him on behalf of the american people to bridge the party's gridlock because our pred's -- president's success is our nation's success. while i'm proud one year later that i have been able to get 12 bipartisan bills out of the house and four signed into law, i'm disappointed that the policies from the biden administration encourage more division, more federal spending, and more crisis hurting american workers, families, and small businesses as we continue through the covid-19 pandemic. inflation is at a four-year high. driving up prices everywhere from the grocery store to prices at the gas pump. we have record high numbers of migrants and illicit drugs at our southern border. straining our resources and empowering drug cartels. our disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 u.s. service members, and we still have left the lives of americans and our allies and military arsenal in the hands of the taliban. in the latest edition of partisan politics, last week one of my bipartisan bills was taken over and instead became over 700 pages of nationalizing elections and letting public funds be used for political campaigns. i will keep working through this gridlock. sticking to my conservative policies, principles, and fighting back against big government, big spending policies. thank you. i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you for that principleled leadership. you have been so effective and grateful you are here. madam speaker, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, to the state of texas, mr. weber. mr. weber: i thank the gentleman. madam speaker, tomorrow, january 20, 2022, dare i say a day that will live in infamy, marks one year since joe biden was sworn in as president. i remember saying this is the most important election of our lifetime. unfortunately, i was right. one year under one party rule and in just one year, one huge continuing debacle in crisis. we went from energy independence to energy crisis, madam speaker. from a rebounding economy to the highest inflation in 40 years. from international peace through strength to increased tensions with our greatest adversaries, might i add losing the confidence of our allies. we went, madam speaker, from border security to two million illegal alien crossings. from the end of the pandemic to the never-ending pandemic. particularly with unconstitutional mandates. the cause? one democrat disaster after another. and americans are losing faith. not only with and in the performance of the current administration, but also with our governmental agencies, the f.b.i., d.o.j., the c.d.c., you name t the list is endless. democrats are showing who they are. socialists, police defunders, open border advocates. anti-parents who just want to say -- want a say in their child's schooling. is that too much to ask? that's what democrats are. this is their brand. and that democrat brand, i might add, is a disaster. we republicans need to point it out every day and every way. so to my republican colleagues i say, let's go brand them. mr. john scon: brand -- mr. johnson: thank you i yield to mrs. miller from ill noivment mrs. miller: thank you, madam speaker. thank you, congressman, for hosting this special order. americans have experienced whiplash this past year as the biden administration has spun us from the america first agenda to america last. we watched in horror as the taliban released thousands of al qaeda, isis, and taliban prisoners from the prison at bagram air base. our service members had bravely sacrificed to capture those terrorists and the biden administration allowed them to be released. one of the isis-k prisoners led the bombing that killed 13 service members. biden's failure in afghanistan led to the surrender of tens of billions of dollars in u.s. military equipment to the taliban. military equipment paid for by u.s. taxpayers will now be used against america because of president biden. as afghanistan fell, president biden disappeared first to camp david, and then to delaware. his cabinet refused to brief the american people directly, and instead sent spokesmen. additionally, the defense secretary refused to testify before congress. the biden administration then flew an estimated 78,000 afghan nationals to american soil and then lied to the american people about the vetting process they were using to ensure that no isis, al qaeda, or taliban terrorists were brought to our shores. to this day no one in the biden administration has been held responsible for the disastrous withdrawal from afghanistan or for the lies that were told to the american people and no one has been fired or resigned. madam speaker, who will be fired and who is resigning? the american people deserve accountability. china, our enemy, has watched all of this unfold and sadly our children and grandchildren will pay the price of biden's incompetence. thank you, i yield back. mr. johnson: well said. delighted to yield two minutes to the gentleman from the great state of georgia, home of the new national championship football team, he didn't wear a red jacket, two minutes to mr. carter. mr. carter: i thank the gentleman for yielding and hosting this. madam speaker, joe biden's first year in office has exceeded all expectations. in 365 short days, joe biden has managed to inflict pain and hardship on the american people. grocery store shelves are empty. prices are up 7% nationwide. gas costs $1 more per gallon than it did when biden took office. americans lost the equivalent of two paychecks last year, and biden has failed to add one single job from our 2019. madam speaker, only one thing has gone down in price during this administration. that's the price of fentanyl. that's the price of fentanyl. because of the fentanyl that's coming across the southern border. washington democrats were counting on joe biden socialize our economy and boy did he deliver. his administration caved to teacher unions, putting the wants of liberal elites ahead of the needs of our children desperate for high quality in-person learning. domestic terrorists, that is now this administration labeled parents who want better for their children and virtual learning. despicable. he caved to russia, gutting the keystone x.l. pipeline but allowing nord stream 2 pipeline to push unchecked. he caved to fauci who kept his job despying lying to congress. who isn't caving? senator manchin, the supreme court, and republicans across the nation who are fed up with this administration's singular focus on stripping rights and opportunities away from americans. this administration is more than earned the 33% approval rating and i hope for the sake of our country that the next three years nothing like this we have endured. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back. mr. johnson: thank you, my friend. madam speaker, happy to yield now two minutes to the gentlelady from indiana, one of the smartest and hard work -- hardest working members of congress. miss sparks: -- mrs. spartz: thank you, madam speaker. thank you, my fellow colleague. i know that we have talk a lot about different crises. and we do have loot -- a lot of crises. we have economic crisis, inflation crisis, we have energy cost crisis, we have supply chain crisis, we have education crisis, we have crime crisis, we have covid response crisis, health care crisis, foreign relations and security crisis, we have freedom of speech crisis, we have centralized government and infringement on our rights crisis. but i think s concerning to me. i went to the border three times. and what i saw is lawlessness. issue of national security, it is anarchy and it is a crisis that poses a risk to sorchtd of our nation. drug cartels are controlling the burden. they control drug trafficking and making billions. we have the highest gas -- deaths in our country ever existed. our kids are dying and they are making a lot of money. the border is open. no one can control it and goes straight to our national security. i hope as all americans who care about our country and our president start dealing with one of the cries sees because it is a serious issue and we cannot disregard national security and put our people at risk. as a representative with this republic regardless of party affiliation and owe this duty to the american people. thank you, and i yield back. mr. johnson: madam speaker, what my colleagues have illustrated here in this one-hour special order is the crisis that we have in this country. we are on the anniversary of one year of far-left democrat rule in washington. we have unified washington and democrats are in charge of the white house and both houses of congress. elections have consequences and every poll across this country shows it and shows it is crisis upon crisis upon crisis and my colleagues illustrated about it. we could continue all night. the economic crisis last year. inflation costs the average worker two paychecks. energy crisis, the national average for a gallon of gas rose 46. #%. open border policies and education crisis. president biden promised to re-open schools but his administration worked with teachers unions and labeled parents as domestic terrorists. a crime crisis, over a dozen u.s. cities had a record high homicide rate in 2021. a covid crisis, although president biden promised to shut down the virus. national security crisis, because of president biden's weakness on the world stage, our adversaries in beijing, and moscow are stronger today. we could go on and on and on. i'm out of time. but i would point out the latest poll that was released this morning didn't just look at numbers and asked the people to give a letter grade, 37% of america caverns give the president a failing grade a more americans give him an f than an a or b. these are failed policies. we are living under the cries sees they have created and we are grateful to the american people for recognizing this and we look forward to bringing our selections to bear. our special order is concluded. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: thank you. members are reminded to refrain in engaging in personalities toward the president. the chair lays before the house an enrolled bill. the clerk: home run 1192 an act to impose requirements on the payment compensation to the persons employed involuntary cases commenced under title 3 in the puerto rico and economic stability act. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from new york, mr. torres, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mrs.torres: i ask -- mrs.torres: -- where are i ask unanimous consent that are members may have five legislative days to include remarks under my special order. i come here with the heaviest heart, my beloved bronx deadliest fire in the history of new york city in more than three decades. a fire that saw the death count of 17 residents including eight children. a malfunctioning space heater was the immediate cause of the fire in a dupe flex on the third floor of a 19-story building known as twin parks northwest and the fire was limited to the third floor, both the apartment door and nearby stairwell door were left open causing the fire to spread openly and rapidly throughout the 19-story building. since the building has no fire escapes and since the stairwells were full of black, toxic smoke, the tenants had no means of escape. the smoke spread so widely that victims were found on every floor. the fatalities of tenants who died from cardiac and respiratory arrest. all the victims came from gambia, a single town in gambia. the community has had roots in twin parks northwest that date back more than half a century. it is hard to imagine a more closely knit community, a community tied by the bonds of faith, family and fellowship than the gambia community. so the loss is deeply felt. the victims were as young as two and no older than 50. these were victims who had their whole lives ahead of them. monthy kreney. muhammad celebrated a 12th birthday. sarah jenet was a student. she had dreams of becoming a social worker. aiding those afflicted by trauma. my heart aches for the father who lost his life and two daughters and son. , for the mother who lost her toddler. and the children who lost their parent. in the jenet family lost four members and the dukaret family lost five. the fire at twin parks northwest was as preventable as it was tragic. if the space heater had shut off automatically, the fire would have been prevented. if the apartment door and stairwell doors had closed automatically, the spread of the smoke would have been contained and countless lives would have been saved. the building had a sprinkler system, the fire would have been extinguished. if it had a two-way intercom system, the tenants would have been advised to remain in their homes instead of fleeing to a stairwell that was a death threat and if they had heat and hot water in their warms there would have been no need to use dangerous space heaters in the first place. the use of space heater is a cry for help and a cry for heat and an act of desperation in decent and dignified housing. the bronx is no stranger to deadly fires. new york city's fallworth fires have all been in my district of south bronx. the prevalence of deadly fires in the south bronx is no accident. it is a consequence of systemic disinvestment from the lowest communities of color like the south bronx and safety and quality of affordable housing. when it comes to fire safety, america is a tale of two countries and new york is a tale of two cities. if you live in a luxury development in manhattan, fire safety can be taken for granted. if you live in an affordable housing complex in the south bronx, there is no guarantee that your building will have a sprinkler system or self-closing doors, no guarantee that your building will have what experts consider anything resee him bling modern standards of fire safety. in america, poor people of color are left to live in conditions that put them at greater risk of losing everything, including their own homes, their own families, their own lives. from a catastrophic fire. if that is not cruel and callous, i'm not sure what would be. we are reminded that safe and decent affordable housing is not a privilege, but a right. not a luxury, but a necessity, a moral necessity, not an abstraction but a matter of life and death. building back better should and must mean building building for communities long forgotten. on january 9, the world bore witness to one of the fire department's finest hours of public service. it took the efforts of more than 200 firefighters to extinguish the fire at twin parks northwest, firefighters who ran out of oxygen and ran into a burning building and saving lives at great risk to their own. there are no words that can convey more powerfully the heroism shown than the image beside me, the image of matt, a proud member of the fdny carrying a baby, a physically traumatized baby that he rescued at the twin parks northwest. it is an image of our common humanity as it is of the fdny's uncommon bravery. for the south bronx, january 9 is a day that will live in infamiliary. but the image reminds me that even in a moment of despair, there is cause for hope. even in a moment of tragedy and a day of infamy, heroes can and do image. the overwhelming sense of sorrow that weighs heavily on my heart is rivaled by the overwhelming gratitude that i feel for our heroes at the fdny. a gratitude that will remain with me for as long as i live. may god bless the heroic souls of the fdny, new york city's bravest and may god bless the resilience and resourceful souls of the gambian community of twin parks northwest. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, mr. schweikert, for 30 minutes. mr. schweikert: thank you, madam speaker. there are so many things we all want to talk about and share about and sometimes, you know, as members of congress, you know, we run from the microphones and we sort of do the shiny loud object of the day because, let's face it, that gets us retweets and facebook and those things. but they're often right to. so i have -- trite. so i have a handful of things i want to walk through but there's going to be a constant theme here. i'm not trying to be mean. but the theme really is, and i think my facts will back me up, that the less the democrat policies, if you'd look at particularly the last 12 months, have made life more miserable for americans, have made working class and poor working class poorer. and actually are crushing sort of the hope. so i want to walk through a couple of economic things. i'm blessed to be the senior republican on joint economics. so a handful of economists that work for our side, there's a handful that work for the left side. and we've been digging and digging and digging, trying to understands the inflaition data -- inflation data, the amount of cash that's chasing good, what's happening with productivity. and, dear lord, i hope i'm wrong. but i'm starting to see numbers that look like we are on the cusp of a wage price spiral. and let's sort of walk through our basic economics. you all remember your high school economics class, particularly those of us who are old enough to have been in high school at the end of the 1970's. businesses raised prices because their costs are going up. you hit typically, just like we're doing right now, you know, the new year, people are getting their wage hikes. many of those wage hikes, most of those wage hikes are nothing more than to keep up with inflation. so you end up with this spike. so there was a handful of folks on the democratic side that were saying, well, look at the december number, it wasn't spiking as much as the previous months. wait until you see the january numbers. when the wages come in. and then you end up with this rule saying, well, now businesses, organizations, government, others, have to keep raising their costs, raising their prices, raising their taxes to keep up because they just had to raise wages. not for our brothers and sisters who are out there working to live better, but basically just to be able to purchase the same things. except at the end of 2021, americans were poorer. the fact of the matter is the average american fell about 2.7% to 3% poorer because inflation grew faster than their wages did. but there's lots of things in the economic literature and i know i'm geeking out a bit, that you start to end up in this see-saw effect. they call it wage price spiral. businesses keep having to raise their costs because now they have to raise the wages and it becomes a very, very ugly circle. and a bit of terrific yavment how many -- trivia. how many here would immediately say, well, go back to the 1980's, particularly the early 1980's. it was paul volcker jacking up interest rates to just extraordinary levels that squeezed down inflation. that's actually only part of the story. if you look at the math, during that time there were the reagan tax cuts, the first round of them. and they created a great spike in productivity because one of the things inflation is is once again, i have too much money chasing too few goods. so raising interest rates, making everything more expensive, still doesn't do anything to make sure you're making more goods. more services to fill up that vakual to remove that in-- vacuum to remove that inflationary pressure. and you actually even see some of that data after we did tax reform here at the very end of 2017. when you saw the spike in productivity, you saw a pretty impressive spike for two years of wages and actually falling inflation. why was that? it's because expensing and other things we did in tax reform, repatriation, getting billions, hundreds of billions of dollars coming back from around the world, back into the country, actually raised productivity, lowered prices. that's the holy grail and right now almost every policy that the administration, and i hate to say this body is engaging in, are counter to that. so we're going to walk through a couple things here and our argument is really simple. almost every major policy set being move forward, and i don't think it's purposeful, i think it's just a misunderstanding of the most basic economics that my democrat brothers and sisters are doing, it's actually making life more miserable. and i don't think it's purposeful. but it is economics. so let's walk through the facts, the actual math. i know this is always uncomfortable. if you actually look at the data that came in, it's actually -- when you look at the expenditures, because i'm using this slide, it's a 2019 slide, but it's important to set the base. our brothers and stfers -- sisters on the lowest cortiles, the term we use in economics, dramatically more of their income for housing. dramatically more than goes to pay for their transportation and food. those are the upper incomes, that's not where they live. and think about what's gone on in this last year. in and most everyone -- and most everyone in this room, probably most everyone watching this we're the people who have savings. we have retirement accounts. we have 401-k's. life has gotten more expensive for us, but our assets, how many of you have a home that's gone up dramatically in value? think about those lower income cortiles, that working poor, that middle class, that lower middle class. do they have a home? are they renters? how much of their cost is their transportation? just trying to provide housing? what we've allowed to happen inflation-wise is just brutalizing them. and when you actually start to understands what the policies from this last year have done, and i'm going to show a number of these things showing that the left's policies are actually crushing the poor, the working poor and the middle class. the difference here when you see this type of graph is we're trying to sort of demonstrate that it's both the effects on populations where you are income-wise, if you're in this lower income, how much more the cost of your life is because of inflation. so this is almost just a pure inflation of who benefits, who doesn't benefit. so if you're a homeowner, if you're someone who has lots of assets and the stock market's been really good to you, you've turned out ahead. if you're like most in the middle class, and lower, your standard of living has gone down. and there's this rule of thumb, from the top line, what are the two things you do to make the working poor poorer? i said this dozens of times behind this microphone. inflation and opening up the border. there is this economic theory, and this is actually old literature. it's like 20 years old and it actually had a number of left groups as part of the authors who said, if you look at the working poor, this is a population who probably didn't finish high school. what they sell is their labor, their willingness to work, their willingness to sweat. what happens when you flood your society, functionally in one year, with a couple million people with similar skill sets? it's just basic math. you functionally have devalued the economics, the value of their labor. so you've given them the double whammy. you've created inflation, which effects the poor and the middle class more dramatically, because you saw from the first chart how much more of their resources go to pay for housing, to pay for transportation, to pay for food. and now you make them compete against a couple million people with similar skill sets. these aren't i.t. jobs. this isn't someone who is at the top of the weight scale and creates a multiplier of productivity in society because they're inventing some new app. this is the person who is hanging drywall, working their hearts out. it's a tough job, their back is aching at the end of the night. and now they look up and there's a couple of million other people in society with similar skill sets. it's a level of misunderstanding that what some folks will come behind these microphones and pretend they're being compassionate, not understanding the cruelty of inflation and having an open border. and how many working poor are getting crushed on. this but i want to go a bit further -- on this. but i want to go a bit further. as you start to look at the inflation level, you got to understand, 7% was sort of the national number. right? in markets like mine, in the phoenix area, we're at 9.7% inflation in 2021. so, a lot of that's because i'm from a growth area. lots of people are abandoning the californias and the illinoiss and moving into my neighborhood. so much of my inflation is actually housing. we've already heard other people come behind the mics, even today, and talk about the cost of housing. well, congratulations. in other parts of the country it's not 7%, in mine it's 9.7% and when we look at the charts and the details, it really, really has hurt the working poor. and they're having trouble finding the most basic accommodations. and then we start to dig in more. and the economists have made it very clear that what was allowed to go on in 2021, and it's the economics warned of inflationary inequity. and the details are pretty clear. for those of you who have assets, you're going to do ok. if you're part of the half of america that doesn't have those few thousand dollars in the bank or owns the house or has the other assets, you become poorer. the policies are making you poorer. and i know this is uncomfortable but you can't keep campaigning and doing politics and saying, we care about the middle class, we care about the working poor, and then keep adopting policies that make them poorer. at some point the math always wins. not the virtue signaling, not the rhetoric. it's the math. and we're making half of our country poorer. but one of the other projects we're working on in the joint economic side and a couple of us on the ways and means committee is also trying to understand what other attributes are there? i can keep coming to the microphone and talking about the open border and we have an administration that doesn't seem to give a darn because it's political. their base has no trouble with a couple million undocumented folks coming into the country. inflation is really, really ugly because the math is brutal. do you have any sense how high interest rates have to go to squeeze out this inflation? i think there's this fantasy that four marginal rate increases this year somehow are going to tap down inflation. i will make you a crazy -- actually, it's not crazy, it's based on math. at the final quarter of this year, you may be seeing 10% inflation. and i hope i'm wrong. but i was in front of this mic a year ago saying i think we're going to be close to 7% and i actually underestimated. and go back to my opening comments. i really, really, really see in the numbers we're on cusp of a wage price spiral and four marginal quarter point increases in interest rates ain't going to cut it. unless congress dramatically starts to think about policies that spike productivity. except you have an article of faith now that tax reform, that expensing, these things we did in the tax code to bring back hundreds of billions of dollars back into the country, to get organizations to invest in plants and equipment, to make workers more productive so they could be paid more. we can't do that. even the liberal economists agree it worked. and it turns out you need to be doing things like that. the less build back better social spending bill, because it delinks money, transfer payments from work, every data set basically says it will continue to spike inflation and at the end of 10 years, you all -- i came here with the paper. it makes it very clear at the end of 10 years the working poor are poorer. because the way the left has designed these transfer payments without an expectation of participation in society and work. i thought we learned this 25 years ago. but somehow math is hersey -- hericy. what are some of the mrs.torres: what are some of the other attributes, working poor, what else makes them poor? we have touched on inflation. we have touched on flooding society with millions of people with similar skill sets. and someone reminds us that the concentration of crime. for most of the members of this body we don't live in neighborhoods that are subject to crime. how many members herp live behind a gate. how many members here have security? i did a ride-along for four hours on monday through north central phoenix. and neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood, the officer had almost like 28 years on the city of phoenix police force, and it was the neighborhood that were most disadvantaged had the most crime. ok, there is an assault. you see the apartment in that apartment, they are a drug dealer and the folks who are in poverty are in the core of the crime and the left takes a position of basically having verbal violence towards law enforcement. but we know the data says if you look at the concentrations of poverty, one of the attributes of what makes someone poor is when someone is stealing you. you are trying to survive, someone steals your automobile, it's another attribute that the left policy is like this constant economic violence on the poor. and then you start to go on another thing we are working on, this one is much more complex, but it is what is proving the theory is true. how many have heard the discussion of health disparity. my native-american population about health disparities and it is absolutely true. our brothers and sisters with diabetes and renal failure, we can almost draw data circles around them and say look at the income inequality to this neighborhood compared to the neighborhood down the street. some of the attributes aren't there. their health, their crime, their education. but the one that no one here has focused on is health. anyone who is listening, try to find the data of those who are suffering type 2 diabetes. find a heat map. and it becomes a really interesting discussion and that is my fourth attribute, our brothers and sisters who are sicker. so the left's attitude is, well, it's good politics and put up a bunch more clinics and help them manage their diabetes. ok. that is honorable. wouldn't it be much more compassion nature to hear and disrupt. we do know, because it came out a year ago, but as if no one actually read it, we actually have the paper that was put together, a working paper series, congressionalbudget office, it was some of the data in the democrats' home run 3. and if you actually go through the numbers within the working paper, it makes it clear that the democrats, it's great politics, we are going to lower drug prices, but the way they go about doing it, a decade from now, so many cures don't come. and as the paper talks about, it is the very cures for things like diabetes and others that are concentrated in our poor population. and if you think about the pricing mechanism if a drug costs more than this amount of money, you can't have it. it's once again policy that says we are going to find a way to live with your misery but with a little cheaper. we are going to find a cure it. it is a different mindset. it is just compassion. but it may not be great politics. because the fact of the matter is, if you look at the mechanics within home run 3, democrats actually make big phrma more profitable and bigger and more profitable and wipe out the small bileic, the -- biologic. and big phrma is maintaining it. the classic economic irony. we give great speeches of how we are going to do this, and wimping, wimping, nod, nod and what is happening is you are linking it in. and once again, if you go through the paper, it makes it really clear that the first couple of years, not much difference because it is already in the disruptive pharmaceutical pipeline and we have done research in only a few that actually succeed. but in five, six years, we see a collapse of those cures. welcome to democrat policy once again. and we have come to the floor multiple times with home run 3. we have made a number of people very angry by referring to it as the big phrma protection racket. but the mathis the math. and now, you still have additional c.b.o. studies that make it clear, we are telling the truth. it is what it is. we have actually made proposals to our brothers and sisters on the left saying we are enraged about the price of pharmaceuticals. and one of the most magical things we can do is some of the kickers to make sure there are other things that are geeky but ways investments goes into the cures. when you have a single-shot cure for hemop hmp elias. we have a mor and going to be really expensive and difficult until we turn it into a foundry until you build the tax code. but i can show you in chart after chart, it saves society and saves taxpayers a fortune in the future. remember, last year's c.b.o. math said in 29 years we are 112 trillion in debt and publicly board -- bored money and we know that number is going to spike. and about 75% of that spending is medicare. that debt is medicare and other 25% is social security. moats powerful thing you can do is disrupt the price of health care and we are doing it by making people healthier. there is one other, i want to throw my frustration at democrat policy and it is more arizona and not the rest of the country. we have seen the debate around here and flowery words and no reality of the piece of legislation. our friends on the left will say it is a voting rights act. ok. how is giving a politician 6-1. you give me $200 and the treasury is going to multiply it by six times, is that defending democracy or is that the left being so much smarter than republicans are about how to stay in power and how about the other things that are in home run 1 and home run 4, their federal election bill? and my theory is a little different than other folks. it is a blatant power grab. not a power grab for the federal government but a power grab by a party that is trying to design the election code to fit their fundraising model, their campaign model. down here, my state, for 18 years, has had voter i.d. laws. every data set out there says you can't find a differential of a population not being able to vote. i think in my state, some of the underlying african american-american females have the highest. and my native americans but doesn't meet what we get from our brothers and sisters on the left. and think about this. this is the circle that i want people to get their heads around. so the democrats push a voting rights bill but it is voting mechanics and what they do, they say we have same-day automatic registration and industrialize ballot harvesting and at the same time we are going to do this and they are allowed to have -- you give them money and get 6-1. why would you do that? first off, in california, democrats have built a huge infrastructure. you run for congress, you take a substantial portion of your campaign money and hire firms and go knock on doors. it's now a campaign mechanics. what happens if you hire people to walk through that massive apartment building and knock on the doors and say i will register you right there. that is what they are doing in this legislation. and the beauty of it, it will be taxpayers who will be financing it, because the left, to their credit has spent the last 15, 20 years building an online contribution system. and here's the kicker. that online contribution system has trained contributors to the left, contributors to democrats to say, don't give one person that much this much money but give 10 people this much. and wimping, wimping, nod, nod, we are going to set up a public funding system so your contribution gets multiplied six times. you got to give the left, give the democrats credit. their audacity and then call it a civil rights voting bill when you break through its mechanics, it's about power, it's about power and control. that's what this is. and the other beauty is handing the bureaucracy here in washington, d.c., the functionality of saying they can tell my state of arizona what is allowed and what isn't allowed. we have a family saying that goes, money, power, vanity and most of the time it is about the money. hit all three in the space of legislation. about them keeping the power. but reality has nothing to do with tearness. it's about the fear that the public understands how much of left's policies have been crappy to them, their families, this country and the mechanism they are going to try to keep in power is to functionally have us finance their elections and allow them to industrialize the bad acts that so many of us worry about. with that, madam speaker, i feel better getting that out of my system, so i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. grothman, for 20 minutes. mr. grothman: there are several issues that are important and i don't feel this body has spent enough time discussing and unless they are addressed, could result in a great deal of discomfort for a lot of americans. the first is the issue revolving or concerning sheltered workshops known as work centers or community rehabilitation prasms and places where people of different abilities doing work, packaging and maybe light manufacturing. because of the different abilities that some people have, they have to get what are called 14-c certificates and work for less than minimum age. disabilities would include like spina bifida or similar things that make it a little more difficult for them to nevertheless, throughout my political career i've always enjoyed touring the shelter workshops because the employees who work there are so proud of the work they are doing and so proud of the fact that they are able to earn a paycheck and purchase some of their own clothes, perhaps purchase gifts for their relatives. right now these sheltered workshops are under attack in the build back better bill. and that bill may easily pass sometime in the next year. i am afraid even the majority of democrats who voted for the bill are unaware that these sheltered workshops are under attack. there are two reasons why people want to get rid of sheltered workshops. there are people who feel under no circumstances should somebody make less than minimum wage. this is ignoring economic reality and ignoring the reality of the type of jobs that are available for these folks. the second concern they have is they feel these people are segregated from the rest of society, working at sheltered workshops. that's of course not true. there are people of all sorts of abilities in these workshops and in my opinion people who work in these workshops frequently work there for 25 or 30 years. and people in management also work there for an extended period of time. nevertheless, there is an extreme group which feels that we are taking advantage of people by having them work in the workshop. i will point out that in addition to the ability to have some of your own economic independence, you develop life-long friends in these workshops that you wouldn't develop if you were looking for other jobs out in the community. one of the concerns for people with different abilities is that it's important that they develop friendships other than just their parents or immediate family. it is something that always is of great concern of parents. so far as the sheltered workshops were shut down, you wouldn't have this natural grouping of friends or life-long co-workers that you are going to be able to interact with. it is time for the sheltered workshop community to wake up and realize in this bill of thousands of pages, the radical group that wants to shut down the sheltered workshops may finally get their dream. and if they get their dream, they will find that some of these folks are going to find jobs in the community, but they're not going to find 35 or 40-hour week jobs in the community. they may five three or four-hour week jobs in the community. they will lose the pride that comes with having a full-time job. they will no longer feel they are like their siblings or friends who go to work every day and earn a paycheck. it will be devastating for these folks. some folks have been working in these sheltered workshops for 25 or 30 years and have years left to go. it is tragic that some people want to take this freedom away from them. i should also point out that nobody forces anybody to work in the sheltered workshops. if there were other jobs in the community, they or their guardians could take them out and have them work fast food or have them work light retail or have them work in some light manufacturing. but what these people who are trying to get rid of the sheltered workshops are doing is they are taking away the choice that these folks have made for themselves. the choice that makes them feel so happy, makes them feel so good. so i strongly encourage people who know someone in these workshops to get politically involved before these folks' lives are devastated. and in so far as we have any of the democrats paying attention to what i'm saying right now, i beg you to go in your district and tour one of the sheltered workshops yourself. because they'll make you feel so good. they're very -- there are very few things in this job that make you feel as good as touring these workshops. because you see how happy and productive people can be that on the face of it seem to be dealt a tough lot on life. but they have made what they can of themselves. they are very happy. and i beg the majority party not to take away this right. the second issue that i'd like it talk about a little bit today is with regard to the covid. one of the frustrating things about the establishment, i think this goes back even before the biden administration, but the establishment, is there has not been enough discussion of the correlation of inadequate amounts of vitamin d and getting severe cases of the covid. right now in this country, all americans should be aiming at having 30 mammograms per mill liter of vitamin d. people who fail to get that 30nanograms disproportionately wind up getting the covid and getting the covid severely. there are other things that make it more likely to get covid. if you have diabetes, if you are overweight. these are other things that correlate with getting covid. and we know that if you lose a little weight, your situation would improve. vitamin d or a lack of having 30nanogram -- 30 nanograms does correlate with problems. right now in our society, sadly, 96% of black americans are insufficient to that level. 88% of hispanics, 65% of whites. it's not something that has been talked about anywhere near enough. and it's a question as to why the public health establishment has not done a better job of explaining the correlation between bad vitamin d outcomes and bad covid outcomes. some people feel it's not something that's talked about enough because there's no money to be made. and of course a lot of people are making a lot of money on the covid. but if you solve your vitamin d levels by just going to the local drug store and buying 20 or 40 dollars worth of vitamin d pills, there's not the possibility of people to make billions of dollars. nevertheless, if you are out there, i strongly encourage all americans to get a hold of vitamin d. vitamin c and zinc are good as well. but today i try one more time to beg my friends back home to go get some vitamin d and i beg the medical community who right now does not test for vitamin d like they should, i'm told it's because there's not enough reimbursement in medicare, but the medical community ought to be testing everybody for is vitn d if they come in for their annual checkup, and all americans should be looking to get that level above 30 nanograms per mililiter. there are other things as well that could be done to reduce the high number of deaths from covid. fenofibrate is a drug that some israeli researchers had success with. it is a generic drug and as a result is very reasonable to get a hold of. the same thing is true with hydroxychloroquine and there are doctors i know who have had success with that. i don't think it's quite as successful with the omicron variant but it was very successful with the alpha vare yanlt -- variant. for whatever reason on some of these cheaper alternatives that i think could have saved hundreds of thousands of people, the public health establishment and the medical establishment has not been as outspoken as they should. now i'm going to yield a couple minutes of my time to the wonderful congressman from virginia. >> i want to thank my friend from wisconsin for yielding on this very important subject. i was unfortunate to catch covid a couple of weeks ago and i think that the vitamin d supplements i was taking in addition to vitamin c and zinc helped to minimize the length and the severity of the illness. but, madam speaker, today marks one year since joe biden was sworn in as president, meaning it's been a year since democrats took unified control of the federal government. and at this point there's no denying that americans are worse off today than they were 12 months ago. mr. cline: consumer prices have risen 7% since democrats won congressional majorities and the white house, marking the 40-year high rate of inflation. gas prices reached $3.28 a gallon last month, 49.6% increase from a year ago. 1.7 million illegal immigrants were encountered unlawfully crossing the boarder in f.y.2021. the highest number ever recorded. 16 major u.s. cities set new homicide records this past year. and just last week, covid hospitalizations hit a record high. 13 american service members tragically lost their lives in the taliban-captured afghanistan -- and the taliban captured afghanistan due to this at ad administration's withdrawal plan. americans are setting records, just not the records they want to be breaking. their party has utterly failed the american people. with that, i thank the gentleman and i yield back. mr. grothman: thank you. i'd like to address another perhaps inadvertent, perhaps not so inadvertent, group prove visions in the build back better bill. as we look across the country, when one compares to where america is today compared to where america was 50 years ago, certainly one area that i think most americans would think is a step in the wrong direction is the breakdown of the traditional family. however, not all people consider the breakdown in the so-called western-prescribed nuclear family structure is a bad thing. black lives matter, which played such a big role in the elections last november, on their website came out saying we want to disrupt the western-prescribed nuclear family structure. they're not the only ones who don't like the western family. we know carl marx felt that as he wanted to work his way toward paradise, we needed to get rid of the traditional family. i don't know that it's a coincidence or not, but our current welfare system, with all of the programs that are part of it, be it the education grants, be it the medical grants, be it the food stamps, be it the low-income housing, are all set up to benefit or not to benefit families in which there are two parents at home to raise the children. in other words, the united states for years and years is trying to get rid of the nuclear family. it's like karl marx himself were writing the welfare policies. in the build back better bill, we're going further on down this line. i don't know that this is exactly supposed to be a payback to blart, but the -- black lives matter, but the reconciliation bill will more than double the earned income tax credit marriage penalty. it has provisions for greatly increasing the number of low-income housing units. and i feel the way those units are dolled out again, very difficult to get those units if you have a mom and dad at home. there are people who want to get rid of that sort of family. i would strongly encourage the majority party before they push this bill any further to have a study done on who benefits from these new provisions and whodunit and is it -- who doesn't and is it one more time a situation in which we are bribing people not to have old-fashioned nuclear families? i i am afraid right now this looks like another victory for the hard left wing of the democrat party that embraces the idea that we ought to get rid of the nuclear family. it's not a coincidence, it's in the bill. so in any event, these are things i leave our audience with as we break for the following week. if you know somebody who works in a sheltered work shop or work center or know a congressman, invite them to the sheltered work shops and see what they are in danger of shutting down. if you know people who do not yet have the covid, remind them to get more vitamin d. if there are any doctors out there, i know sometimes you can't be reimbursed for everything but you guys make enough money, be sure you do some testing of vitamin d levels so if people are below 30nanograms per milliliter they know it and know they should go to the drugstore and get more vitamin d together with zinc and vitamin c. and finally, i encourage the majority party before they do anymore with build back better to have some work done and see whether you really want to go ahead and further steepen the penalty for married couples who have children, which is already, like i said, already -- it's like the policy of the united states, we don't want to have old-fashioned nuclear families. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman yields back? mr. grothman: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. pursuant to section 11-b of house resolution 188, the house stands adjourned until 9:00 a.m. >> we take you live to the white house where president bide season holding a news conference. this started a moment ago. the president: best infrastructure in the world. now we're be

Related Keywords

Arkansas , United States , Taiwan , Nevada , Alabama , Afghanistan , Buffalo District , Virginia , South Lake , Texas , Johnson Well , Arizona , Southlake , Sabine River , Louisiana , Connecticut , Mexico , Pike County , Ohio , Massachusetts , Chicago , Illinois , Missouri , New Brunswick , New Jersey , Washington , Wayne County , Indiana , Michigan , Sabres , Aquitaine , France , Puerto Rico , Gambia , Maryland , Greene , Georgia , Paris , France General , Alexandria , Al Iskandariyah , Egypt , Vermont , China , Minnesota , Beijing , Delaware , Whitehouse , District Of Columbia , California , Russia , Ukraine , South Carolina , Rochester , New York , Kentucky , Florida , Rhode Island , Boston , Wisconsin , Canada , Germany , Jersey , Hampshire , Maine , Tennessee , Colorado , Bay County , Phoenix , Pennsylvania , Kansas , North Dakota , Utah , Americans , Germans , Gambian , Afghan , American , Texans , Chinese , Tennesseans , German , Wasserman Schultz , Statesof America , Filemon Vela , Sean Riley , Jerry Nadler , Henry Cuellar , Roe V Wade , Bonnie Watson Coleman , Tom Vilsack , Joe Biden , Donald Payne , Carl Marx , Jim Costa , Wayne Simmons , Jackie Robinson , Martin Luther King Jr , David Wagner , Louie Gohmert , Jimmy Carter , Bruins Willie , Al Qaeda , Jason Moloney , Paul Volcker , Karl Marx , Bernard Mason , Scott King , Kamala Harris ,