Lauren Boebert

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I am glad that we have found some common ground on this. I thank my colleague for supporting this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 188 and YEA on Roll Call No. 189.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 190, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 191, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 192. personal explanation

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 185, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 186, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 187. personal explanation

Mrs. BOEBERT

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

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, this amendment is simple and straightforward. My amendment provides congressional disapproval of the denial of the Jordan Cove project permits. The Jordan Cove project was an important liquefied natural gas proposal that would have been the only West Coast LNG export terminal and would have been essential to exporting LNG to our allies in the Pacific and freedom around the world. The Department of Energy determined that the Jordan Cove project was expected to create 6,000 jobs during peak construction and generate up to $100 million in State and local tax revenue annually. Importantly, this project would have allowed us to export clean liquefied natural gas to our allies, many of which have been dependent on energy from Russia, OPEC, Venezuela, and even Iran. America makes the cleanest energy around the world. In fact, our natural gas is 42 percent cleaner than Russian gas. American innovation, in particular, fracking, has allowed America to be the global leader in emissions since 2000. In 2016, the United States Geological Survey released a report that increased the estimate of technically recoverable natural gas in the Mancos shale deposit from 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to a staggering 66.3 trillion, a 40-fold increase. David Ludlam, who worked for the West Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said, there is enough natural gas to power the State of California for 50 years right in Colorado's Third District's backyard, and the need for our community to join the global energy marketplace has never been more urgent. A West Coast LNG export terminal would have shaved critical days and significant costs off exports to Asia, eliminated threats associated with hurricanes, and reduced our reliance on the Panama Canal, which causes significant uncertainty and delays. We should be advancing energy infrastructure projects to help ensure American energy dominance and help promote economic growth through a true all-of-the-above energy policy, not having elected politicians and bureaucrats pick winners and losers in the energy sector. Importantly, Jordan Cove has significant bipartisan support. In fact, the project in Colorado was supported by former-U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, former-Governor John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Senate, the liberal Denver Post, the liberal Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and local governments in western Colorado, including Mesa, Garfield, Rio Blanco, Moffat, Routt, Delta, and many other counties and municipalities in my region. While similar project proposals have languished for decades, Jordan Cove was on track for success after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted two Federal permits for the Jordan Cove Energy Project and issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity to the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline in March of 2019. Unfortunately, the anti-pipeline, anti-natural gas, liberal Governor's administration in Oregon denied the permits and the certificate necessary for these projects, essentially killing the project in December of 2021 when the company pulled out, citing their inability to obtain the necessary State permits in the immediate future. If Green New Deal extremists in the Governor's office actually cared about the environment, they would have supported this project as natural gas emissions result in significantly fewer air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, and this important project would have advanced local, regional, and global emissions reduction goals. Like the Keystone XL pipeline, Jordan Cove was a major opportunity killed by extreme environmentalists whose sole agenda isn't protecting the environment, isn't being good stewards of what we have been blessed with, but is keeping our American energy sources in the ground and killing off fossil fuels. America deserves an American energy strategy that works for all Americans, and this amendment makes clear that we should not allow States with a misguided agenda to kill projects of national and global energy importance. Mr. Chair, I support adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of my amendment which inserts my 90-Day Review Act into H.R. 1. My amendment will further improve H.R. 1's overall goal of ensuring reasonable timelines and predictability for projects by shortening the timeline to file a petition for judicial review of a permit, license, or approval of a major infrastructure project from 150 days to 90 days. Frivolous litigation should not be a hurdle to critical infrastructure projects that will improve the lives of Americans across the country. For far too long, we have put trial lawyers' interests ahead of the American people. Burdensome litigation causes our hardworking men and women to sit idle on job sites as they wait on court processes. It is far past time that Congress reduces the Federal Government's stranglehold on critical infrastructure projects and helps job creators put the American people to work. By streamlining the Federal litigation timeline, my amendment will help reduce frivolous litigation, cut red tape, and help critical infrastructure projects move forward in a more timely manner. My amendment will reduce the amount of time it takes to construct real and important infrastructure projects like highways, bridges, railways, dams, and other important projects that will improve the lives of the people in my district and all across America. Last Congress, we saw Democrats ram through a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill where only 9 percent of it actually went to infrastructure. Rather than focusing on meaningful reforms, this bill funded a slush fund at the Department of Energy for Green New Deal projects; tens of billions of dollars to subsidize the electric vehicle industry, establish programs to cool down pavement, reduce idling done by trucks, and even study racist roads and bridges. Yes, Mr. Chair, you heard that correctly. Instead of spending time on this unpopular, America last agenda, House Republicans have proposed real reforms like this one, and it would cut red tape and speed up construction. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment as well as the underlying bill. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I remind my colleagues, last night while they charged their phones, this morning when they brewed their cup of coffee, or even considered maybe putting on a mask for the third year in a row, and even this very moment as we stand in this Chamber with the lights on, the mics working, the AC turned down very, very low, for every one of these actions, they have an American energy worker to thank for it. Instead of being grateful, Joe Biden and D.C. Democrats have waged a war on the American energy production, and the consequences have been devastating for the American people. Gas prices are up 44 percent, and instead of trying to enable moms and dads to get to and from work without breaking the bank, my Democratic colleagues are still suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. I don't know, maybe Pfizer has a vaccine for that one. You know, in my district, we have been regulated into poverty because of Democrat policies pushing oil and gas out of our communities. Now, moms who could have stayed home are forced to get a job to supplement the income that is lost from the good-paying job that dad no longer has. Then there are the childcare struggles that they are facing and the inflation struggles that they are facing that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, have created. Mr. Chairman, instead of screaming: ``Orange man bad'' on TikTok, maybe they should come up with some real solutions because that isn't going to solve the problems that America is facing. American Republicans are focused on delivering policy solutions to address those problems. H.R. 1 includes my bill, the American Energy Act, which will reduce gas prices by providing certainty for responsible energy production and preventing baseless litigation. After all, no one produces better, safer, cleaner energy than us right here in the United States of America. Mr. Chairman, it is past time House Democrats start to have a little empathy and dismount their moral high horse of climate change. There are thousands of children currently today slaving away in the Congo at Chinese-owned mines. They have to dig for cobalt with their bare hands. Instead of freeing these slaves and even ourselves from the need of this resource, they want to buy more Chinese-made products. It is clear they have a climate religion. They worship the Earth while I worship the creator, not the creation. We are here to be good stewards of our land, so stop sacrificing the American families at your altar of climate change. The choice here is simple. America can continue to rely on foreign energy produced by nations that hate us----

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chairman, the choice is simple. America can continue to rely on foreign energy produced by nations that hate us and hate our values, or we can become energy independent once again. Pursue energy dominance and put the American roughneck before OPEC, and maybe, just maybe, we put the American people before the Green New Deal lobbyists. Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the passage of H.R. 1.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Madam Chair, we have so many people who see the idiocy in men pretending to be women and stealing opportunities from females. These girls practice their whole lives and sacrifice their bodies with strains and other injuries in sports at times only to be outpaced by a biological male. I think it is very common sense for parents to simply be notified that this is taking place. There is Federal funding going to our public schools. If we are going to see this extremism take place in our public schools, I believe we have some sort of nexus with that to at least say parents have a right to know what is going on and that it is not being taken from them. Other than this very simple, commonsense amendment, I am more in favor of abolishing the Federal Department of Education and getting the Federal Government completely out of public schools, but we are not there right now. We do fund public schools, and there is a mess going on there. Our children are hurting and suffering because of it. Madam Chair, again, I urge my colleagues to support this simple, commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, this amendment is simple and straightforward. My amendment simply requires notification to parents if their child's school operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for biological females. Madam Chair, women's sports are under attack. Woke policies backed by far-left extremists who demand male participation in female sports are completely delusional and contradict science. This allows men who identify as women to undermine legitimate women's accomplishments. American women and girls deserve to compete against biological women in sports, opportunities for athletic scholarships, and their rightful places on the winner's podium without the fear of being sidelined and beat out by a biological male. This was on complete display when William Thomas, a biological man who previously competed in men's swimming, stole Emma Weyant's first- place trophy at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women's 500-Yard Freestyle Final. As a competitor in men's swimming from 2018 through 2019, Mr. Thomas ranked 554th in the 200-yard freestyle and 65th in the 500-yard freestyle. After deciding to compete against women, this mediocre male athlete, Mr. Thomas, ranked fifth in the 200-yard freestyle and won the 500-yard freestyle. Mr. Thomas stole Emma's championship trophy and took former Olympic swimmer Reka Gyorgy's spot in the 2022 NCAA Division I swim meet. Last Congress, I led a couple of dozen Members in introducing a resolution honoring Emma Weyant as the rightful winner of the 2022 NCAA Division I women's 500-yard freestyle race. I am also a cosponsor of Representative Steube's bill, H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023. Madam Chair, I refuse to allow our children and grandchildren to be groomed by big corporations, schools, and politicians and to think it is okay for men to compete in women's sports. Again, my amendment simply requires notification to parents if their child's school allows males to participate in female-designated sports. I hope that we could all come to agree that parents have the right to know this before it occurs. Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I rise in favor of my amendment, which will require schools to notify parents if they allow biological males to use restrooms or changing rooms designated for biological females. Throughout our debate today, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have continued to mischaracterize this bill as extreme. They harp on the same talking points, saying that this bill is looking to ban books, censor curriculums, and punish teachers. I would like any child's pornographic books to be banned, but that is not exactly what we are talking about here in this amendment. All the while, under Democrat control, we have seen public K-12 schools promote: critical race theory, teaching our children to hate their country and to hate their fellow classmates simply because of the color of their skin; radical gender ideology; and even drag shows to impressionable young children. That is what is extreme. A school in my home State of Colorado has even changed a child's gender pronouns and preferred names and kept that information from the child's parents. Speaking as the mother of four boys and a soon-to-be grandma, enough is enough. I don't send my boys to school to receive indoctrination from the woke mob or be sexualized by groomers. If they are, I sure as heck want to know about it and have the right to speak up, and so do these parents. Let me set the record straight. House Republicans want parents to be involved in their child's education. We want to take control back as parents of our children's education rather than leaving it to partisan politicians or unelected bureaucrats. We don't want to send the FBI after them as domestic terrorists. We want to foster an active learning environment, not shut schools down and enforce outdated and unnecessary mask and vaccine mandates on our children. We want children to feel safe at school and not pave the way for school administrative staff to hide a sexual assault from parents, like we saw in Loudoun County. Less than 2 years ago, about 30 miles from here, a ninth-grade girl was sexually assaulted by a man wearing a skirt in the women's restroom at school. This male was allowed to follow the victim into the restroom because of Loudoun County Public Schools' inclusive transgender bathroom policies. When the father of the victim came to a school board meeting to protest these policies that caused his teenage daughter to be raped, he was arrested after an altercation with a woman who said that she didn't believe his daughter was raped. The superintendent also defended the school's transgender bathroom policy at that meeting. The man in the skirt was found guilty of two counts of forcible sodomy, a count of anal sodomy, and a count of forcible fellatio. He was also charged with the sexual assault of another student that occurred months later at a different Loudoun County school. The left's ideology is far more delusional, and it is dangerous. These inclusive policies have paved the way for sexual predators to use the left's definition of gender to take advantage of their victims. Unfortunately, this is just one example of many biological males using bathrooms to assault women and children. Madam Chair, my amendment would grant parents the right to know if schools that their children are attending are forcing their children to share vulnerable spaces with potential predators. Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of H.J. Res. 27. This resolution will overturn Joe Biden's latest attempt to expand the Federal Government's jurisdiction and regulate every aspect of our lives. The decision to return to the 2015 WOTUS rule puts burdensome regulations that will devastate small businesses, manufacturers, farmers, home and infrastructure builders, local communities, water districts, and everyday Americans across my district in Colorado and the entire country. In short, the EPA's job-killing WOTUS regulation expands Washington bureaucrats' jurisdiction over ditches and navigable waters, threatening property rights and water rights for our communities. Rural Colorado runs on water, and this unconstitutional regulation will harm our way of life. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Sam Graves, for his great work to protect private water rights. We all want clean air, we all want clean water, and we know that we do it right without bureaucrats getting in our way. I support this legislation.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chairman, free speech is under attack here in America, the free United States of America. Putin is a thug, yes. China is a threat. But nothing--and I mean nothing--will bring America to its knees like the removal of our free speech, the cornerstone for our constitutional Republic. America without free speech is like a phone without a charger. It is only a matter of time before it dies. Attacks on free speech should not be seen with a partisan lens. Any attack on free speech is an attack on every American who gave their life so that you and I could live freely, so that you and I could express our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions without fear of retribution or persecution. Mr. Chair, the sad reality is the Biden administration has decided to collude with Big Tech to silence the voice of the American people under the guise of misinformation. We saw in our committee hearings it was demonstrated that the FBI colluded with Big Tech to silence Americans' free speech. The gentleman from New York says, well, it is Russia and China who are going to interfere with our elections. No, no, Democrats are doing just fine with that on their own. When they have the Federal Government working for them and their agenda to push that forward and silence Americans' free speech, they are doing just fine with election interference. We have seen the polls that said if Americans knew about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, the election outcome would have been different, and you all wanted that silenced so greatly. Now let me ask you--we certainly have the Constitution; I would love to get my colleagues on the other side of the aisle a copy--who decides what is true or false? I certainly don't trust the Federal Government to make that distinction. They were wrong about the Hunter Biden laptop. They were wrong about the vaccine mandates, about masks, about the Wuhan lab leak, wrong about shutting down churches and schools and businesses, and they are dead wrong to use their positions to attack Americans' free speech. For the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the only thing harder than climbing a flight of stairs, riding a bicycle, or reading a teleprompter seems to be telling the truth. Free speech isn't just for kind speech or true speech or widely accepted speech, it is for all speech, and it is worth fighting for. I thank my friend, colleague, and chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, Mr. Comer, for his work to preserve free speech in America.

Ms. BOEBERT

Ms. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, my voting card did not register my vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 126. Amendment No. 6 Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I rise in favor of H.R. 347, the REIN IN Act. I do think that it is very rich that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about regular order all of a sudden. My first 2 years in Congress there was no such thing as regular order. In fact, I served on the Budget Committee and they passed two budget reconciliations on the House floor without it going through committee: completely bypassed committee. First one was $1.9 trillion. The next one, $700 billion. Really all it was, was the Green New Deal: just real quick, hurry up, get it to the floor. We have to spend trillions and trillions of dollars and hurt as many Americans as possible in the 2 years that we have left in power. With this REIN IN Act, this bill will hold Joe Biden accountable for this reckless spending that he has approved by my Democrat colleagues, who hastefully sent all of these bills to him, rushing him to spend trillions and trillions of American taxpayer dollars. His administration will now be required to publish the inflationary impact of executive orders before enacting them. Madam Chair, my constituents are struggling to deal with the disastrous effects of Bidenflation. Under 2 years of a one-party rule, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi unleashed a record inflation crisis on the American people that has decimated their bank and retirement accounts, increased gas prices to record levels, raised utility bills, drove up grocery costs, and made it harder to live for the people in my district, Colorado's Third District, and all throughout this great country. The primary root cause of this record-breaking inflation was trillions of dollars of wasteful Federal spending. In Joe Biden's first year in office alone, he issued more executive orders than any other President in my lifetime, costing taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The American people said loud and clear last November that enough is enough. They have empowered this new majority to demand transparency by revealing just how much Biden's executive orders are costing American families and small businesses. Madam Chair, I thank my colleague and chairwoman of the Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik, for her work to hold Joe Biden and his administration accountable. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the underlying bill.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Madam Chair, I rise in favor of Amendment No. 3, which will require inflation-impact assessments to be published on the Office of Management and Budget's website, not just reported to Congress. This simple, straightforward amendment will ensure that the American people, who bear the brunt of inflation's impacts, will be better informed of the President's inflation-inducing actions. Without my amendment, the real-life consequences of Joe Biden's spending spree in the White House will not be seen by those impacted most. This will provide transparency for the administration to answer to the American people. Thanks to Joe Biden's reckless spending agenda, America will spend $10 trillion more over the next 10 years than we were estimated to spend. While the Federal Government continues to spend trillions of dollars it doesn't have, inflation has hit a 40-year high and our Nation is now mired in a recession. Instead of addressing these major economic concerns head-on, the Democrat solution to inflation is to keep on spending. The GOP majority has been empowered to hold the Biden administration accountable and demand transparency by revealing just how much Biden's executive orders are costing American families and small businesses. This excessive spending has real consequences. American families will pay an $8,581 inflation tax over the next year. Currently, 20 million Americans cannot pay their electric bill. We have seen a 4.3 percent decline in real wages since Biden took office. Americans have lost more than $2 trillion in retirement savings. Gas is nearly $4 a gallon again. Americans are paying more for everything because of leftwing extremist policies. House Republicans are working to reduce inflation by fundamentally changing the way we vote on appropriations bills and putting an end to reckless spending omnibus packages passed on Christmas Eve, without any time to actually read the bills, multi-thousand-page bills spending trillions of dollars, about 24 hours or less to read it. We are working to cut wasteful spending, get to the bottom of fraudulent payments made by the Federal Government, support American energy production, and oppose tax increases proposed by the Democrats. Economic strength and job growth result from policies that unshackle job creators, allow American ingenuity, and provide certainty. Madam Chair, I again thank my colleague, the chairwoman of the Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik, for her leadership on this issue. Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and vote in favor of the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.